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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Mrs. DeKroyft 



Sixty years after the events of the opening chapter 



A Place in Thy Memory 



by 



MRS. HELEN ALDRICH De KROYFT 

AUTHOR OF 
"THE FORESHADOWED WAY," "mortara," ETC. 



SIXTY-SEVENTH EDITION 
REVISED 



NEW YORK 

(Electrotype* bp @H)e Ctoto J)reg0 

1905 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two eopies Received 

DEC 26 1905 

& Copyright Entry 
CLASS CX. XXC. No. 

/ X~? f $-? 

COPY B. 



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" Copyright, 1905, by ^ 

Mrs. HELEN ALDRICH De KROYFT 



IN 

IN 



Dedication j 

The first issue of "A Place in Thy Memory" 
was dedicated to Mrs. Dr. Nott, of Union 
College ; but since she has been long enough 
in heaven to have forgotten all about the 
little book and its author, better I dedicate 
this enlarged edition to the one on the earth 
of whom she oftenest speaks among the an- 
gels, always naming him as when here : 

"MY FAVORITE GRANDSON, 

Mr. WILLIAM APPLETON POTTER, 

OP NEW YORK." 



PEEFAOE 

As the author of " Memoirs of My Youth " was 
constrained to bare his heart to the world for the sake 
of a few thousand francs, so when that strange mu- 
tation of fortune — in one short month a bride, a 
widow, and blind — had swept over my life, leaving 
me little save a choice between life-long dependence 
and an effort to do something for myself, I was in- 
duced to gather from my friends a bundle of my 
letters and bind them into a book. Before they went 
to press, though, all references to a phenomenal in- 
cident of my last term at school were carefully erased, 
and lines of stars put in their places. But that was 
in 1849, since when the world has grown more indul- 
gent to the unaccountable in human experience ; and 
for this revised edition of my epistolary writings, 
not only those expunged passages have been carefully 
replaced, but in one chapter, as the reader will see, 
the phenomenon, vision, or whatever it was, is given 
entire. 



A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 



CHAPTER I 

HAD I KNOWN 

Rochester, N. Y., November, 1846. 

This hour, my precious mother, my whole heart is 
drawn out to you, and every thought in my soul is 
weary with longings for home. If this frail body 
could move with the fleetness of thought, how I would 
fly to you now and pillow my head on your breast, 
while your soft hand would dry these tears from my 
poor, poor eyes! Oh, that I could open them once 
more, mother, once more see your smiling face, and 
feel my spirit grow warm and gentle in the light of 
your eyes and your looks of love ! 

Tell me, dear mother, have you changed at all? 
Do you look as when I saw you last? Ah, could I 
have known that ere we should meet again the light 
would leave me, how I would have gazed on your 
form until on my spirit were engraven your every 
look and feature! You often come to me now when 
dreams possess my thoughts, and I hasten to tell 
you that dear William is dead; and then, by the 
strange contradiction of dreams, looking full into 
your pitying face, I tell you how sad it is not to see, 
how empty and lonely the world is since that awful 

1 



2 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

waking that left me no more the light and the day. 
Before the words, though, are half fallen from my 
lips, the soul in me is startled from the dream to the 
yet more awful reality. Then, only the One in 
heaven " acquainted with griefs " can possibly know 
to pity, or to number, even, the agonies of such a 
waking — a waking whose struggles to be free seem 
never to end — struggles, alas ! when all is over, when 
hope is dead, and darkness itself seems stopping my 
breath. I have tried to be resigned, mother — tried 
to think it all for the best ; but, alas ! trying is only 
trying; and when I stand alone upon this sea of 
night, and remember that these black waves may go 
on breaking above and around me yet fifty, sixty, or 
even seventy years, my heart fails me, and, like the 
doubting Hebrew, I sink, sink, until an unseen arm 
lifts me, and a small still voice whispers to my 
soul, " Be still, and know that I am God." Oh, He 
must be in it all, mother; His hand is never quite 
" lifted up " from blessing, and dark and heavy as 
this privation is, it must be in some strange way all 
dewy with His mercy and shining with His love. 
No night can last alway, and there may be creep- 
ing slowly up to the rim of my life's horizon a morn- 
ing whose dawn is not yet begun. Faith! thou 
mightiest angel of the soul, the light on whose wings 
chases away the shades of grief and puts fear to 
flight ; makes heaven a bright reality, and brings the 
departed so near, that, as in happy dreams, we 
hearken to their voices, and bask the while in the 
light of their smiles. 

When Moses began his lonely journey up the side 



HAD I KNOWN 3 

of Pisgah, the clouds lowering above and around him 
gave little promise of the glory that lay beyond. And 
so now my dreaded journey to the New York Blind 
Institute may have concealed behind its gloom a little 
Canaan of hope for the future. At all events, music 
seems now the one outlook for my ever doing any- 
thing more in the world, and New York the only 
place possible for acquiring it. Senator Backus has 
arranged with the managers of the Institute that 
teaching the blind ones there orally an hour and a 
half each day is to cover the entire expense of my 
stav. So, for a while at least, I shall cease to be a 

%/ 7 7 

cause of solicitude to my friends, who have already 
showered kindnesses upon me until I have no new 
words to thank them in and no new thing to pray 
for them, But when new hills and new valleys in- 
tervene, and I am far, far away, mother, your anx- 
ious cares for your child will be kindled anew, and 
I fear your loving eyes will seldom be dry of their 
tears. But be comforted, mother. He whose tender 
love remembereth even the ravens and the little spar- 
rows, never leaves nor forsakes those who put their 
trust in Him, and ere long I shall come to you again. 
My longing heart coaxes me to leave all and fly to 
you now, but duty points another way, which would 
be a dark and lonely way, indeed, but for the sweet 
hope-light Heaven seems already shedding over it 
all. Dear father's parting words are still fresh in 
my memory; and your prayers and your tears, 
mother, are locked in my heart. Your love is a sort 
of spirit-robe that covers all my thoughts, and I wear 
it everywhere. 



4 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

Please kiss little sisters and brother often for me, 
and let them never forget their sister Helen. But 
they mnst not think of me only as something sad. I 
am growing more cheerful now — laugh sometimes, 
and may ere long become so much a bird of the night 
as to sing again. Indeed, since I have been with 
you all, and felt how surely nothing can ever separate 
me from your love, I have more courage. 

Good-by, my dear, precious mother, and my blessed 
father, my loving sisters, and my one little brother. 
May our heavenly Father keep you all in His love, 
and set His whitest angels to watch around about you 
by night and by day. 

I go to the Institution for one year — an age to look 
forward to; still, I may stay until able to play the 
organ in church, and I need not tell you how precious 
letters from home will be to me there. 

Good-by, father; good-by, sweet mother, with love 
and kisses for each and every one, all dewy with 
tears and fervent with feelings that there are no 
words for. 



To 

Mrs. 0. Aldrich, 

"Stone Cottage," 

Mumford, N. Y. 



CHAPTER II 



THE FOURTH SCENE 



Blind Institute, New York, December, 1846. 

As you predicted, my stranger escort was kindness 
itself, and all the way just as polite and beautiful 
as he could be. The night, though, was dark indeed 
descending the river, and the cold intense enough to 
make the hearts of the hills shiver. The November 
winds, too, howled their worst, and lying awake in 
my berth at night, breathless with fear, suddenly it 
flashed upon me : " Why ! this is the being ' borne 
or carried along through the darkness/ exactly as 
it was in the vision." But when at last this Blind 
Institute was reached, and its heavy doors banged 
behind me, I could think of nothing but Dante's 
" Inferno," and almost imagined myself moving its 
darkest shades among. Nor was the illusion lessened 
when, one after another, the sightless ones here were 
led up and their hands placed gropingly in mine by 
way of introduction. 

You have often called me a hero, Phin. ; and now, 
looking back to that morning, I am almost inclined 
to call myself one. The angels, though, despite their 
pitying tears, saw perfectly just what a poor, weak- 
hearted thing the spirit in me was; and they know, 

5 



6 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

too, full well how many thousand times since my 
courage has been upon the very verge of failure. So, 
you see, self-praise would hardly look well in the 
eyes of such witnesses, and it is doubtless better that 
I say nothing about it. 

Your letter came on Saturday, when it so happened 
that all the officers and teachers of the Institute were 
absent; and with it in my hand I ran many times 
from first to third floor, up and down the long iron 
stairs, dodging in at every door, seeking a pair of 
eyes. At length the good old fireman, aided by his 
glasses, spelled out for me " Phin." at the close. 
Then, curiosity being so far gratified, I essayed to 
go on with my practicing; but ever and anon my 
thoughts would stray to that letter, imagining all the 
droll, kindly things it doubtless contained, coming 
from you. And as often, too, my fingers played 
truant to their bidding, and went creeping softly over 
the keys — softly and more softly, while louder and 
louder rose the whisper in my heart : 

Phin. is good ; Phin. is noble ; and how beautiful of 
him to be the first in all the world to get a letter to 
me here! 

There must be someone in the world to love you, 
Phin. — someone whose great heart hung twained 
upon the tree of Life with yours; and however dis- 
tant now, your kindred souls must be forever drawing 
nearer and nearer to each other. Indeed, God has 
never made such an anomaly as a single soul ; and 
though lost to me here, I still have my William up 
in heaven, with my promise to be ever waiting, wait- 
ing, written all over his blessed palms with my tears, 



THE FOURTH SCENE 7 

and sealed with kisses from my lips ; while across all 
the dark and lonely sea of life, my heart's one sweet 
pole-star is the blessed assurance that he is forever 
waiting and watching for me there. 

The better to give those who have never seen an 
idea of how music is written, cards have been pre- 
pared for them with the notes, lines, bars, etc., raised 
or embossed. Beyond that, though, there is no such 
thing as music with raised notes. All are taught 
orally, and play from memory, just as I would have 
done in Rochester or elsewhere, only, perhaps, more 
scientifically. Professor Eieff , the head teacher, com- 
mences with every pupil as though he were to be- 
come a composer; which, you see, makes one in the 
end a very independent player, having modulation, 
transposition, etc., all at the finger-ends. 

And as for the reading, the contrast between glan- 
cing one's eyes along the lines and creeping over them 
with one's fingers was so very painful to me, that 
my tears melted away the delicate words almost 
faster than I could decipher them. Raised print, 
too, is both expensive and cumbrous ; and so, the other 
day, after thinking it all over, I closed up the book, re- 
placed it in the library, and bade adieu to all reading 
with the fingers for me. The card, though, invented 
in Paris for those who have once seen to write with, is 
a veritable mercy ; and who knows but that I shall yet 
come so near to Paradise Lost as to write myself out 
of this Institution with it! Small means, you know, 
sometimes work to great ends ! 

This is indeed a place where ladies retire from the 
world, take a black veil, and nevermore see the face 



8 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

of man; still, it is not a nunnery, and how cruel of 
you, Phin., to be torturing me with such gloomy ques- 
tions about it ! No, no. In place of " prison bars or 
heavy grates " to whisper through, this Blind Insti- 
tute is a beautiful aviarhim, from which the Great 
Trainer has only shut the light away, the while His 
sweet warblers the better learn the songs He would 
fain have them sing through all eternity! Indeed, 
notwithstanding the habits, manners, and ideas of 
the majority are as unlike the seeing world as pos- 
sible, there are those among them who have attained 
to degrees of culture truly astonishing. And what 
marvellous memories, too, they all have ! One young 
lady I know can take six pieces of music at a three- 
quarters-of-an-hour sitting, and remember them so 
as to teach them again and play them months after- 
ward. 

There are nine pianos in the building, and some 
eighty to practice upon them, affording, you see, 
scarcely an hour a day to each; at which rate I was 
becoming an organist rather slowly. But the other 
day the superintendent received a check from our 
good Mr. Champion, desiring him to rent a nice 
piano for me the remainder of the year. I have it 
now in the parlor, all by myself ; and you will know 
how I appreciate the beautiful favor when I tell you 
that I practice there seven, and sometimes eleven, 
hours out of the twenty-four. They have also two 
organs, besides violins, flutes, and a large brass band. 
All of these going, I sometimes quite forget that I 
am enclosed within gloomy, granite walls with iron 
doors, and seem almost the inhabitant of a spirit- 



THE FOURTH SCENE 9 

land, where harmony reigns and anthems are ever 
new; or, as Hosmer says, 

" And ever throbs with melody the air." 

Yon ought to come here some time, Phin., if only 
to take a run with me around the gymnastic pole, or 
a walk on the promenade grounds, or a swing in what 
they call the " scup " ; all of which exercises I com- 
pel myself to the more rigorously as I find myself 
the less inclined to them. I also walk awhile every 
morning on the upper piazza, on the side of the 
building that looks away toward Rochester, to whose 
Eden of light and love, alas ! I may return no more, 
nevermore ! 

Oh, beautiful, beautiful Rochester ! within the roar 
of whose falls my eyes first opened to the world, 
and there they closed upon its glories forever. There 
I listened to the last whisper of love to my heart, 
and set up the years of my life a lonely Mizpah to 
its memory; there I saw the death-angel break the 
idol of my affections, and hasten to lay him away in 
the grave; there, when tears had drowned the light 
from my eyes and turned my morning into a night- 
time of woe, strangers forgot their own griefs and 
vied with each other in their haste to bring blessing 
and comfort to me. Oh, chide me not, then, if, for- 
getting all the world beside, I should still remember 
beautiful, love-lighted Rochester, blest not more for 
the white bread she has broken to the world, than for 
the golden fruits and purple clusters forever ripen- 
ing upon her fields and hanging pendant from her 
walls. 



10 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

Dear, beautiful Rochester, enthroned in peace and 
sceptred with plenty, my heart hastens to crown her 
as memory has embalmed her: proudest, queenliest 
city of the world, resting calm upon the bosom of 
the dear Genesee, with her green-bordered mantles 
floating about her ! I see her there now, as I saw her 
last, looking half distraught in her dream of beauty. 
harking alternate to the rocking lullabies of her own 
murmuring river, and the bugle blasts, the trumpet 
winds, and roundelay breezes of blue Ontario. 



To 

Mr. Phix. Homan, 

"Advertiser " Office, 

Rochester, X. Y 



CHAPTER III 

WHO SHALL CHIDE 

Blind Institute, New York, January, 1847. 

This hour I sit me down to write you in a little 
world of sweet sounds. The choir in the chapel is 
chanting at the organ the evening hymn, and across 
the hall a little group with a piano and flute is turn- 
ing the very atmosphere into melody; while, in a 
room below, some twenty little blind girls are join- 
ing their silvery voices in tones sweet and pure 
as angel whispers ; but ah, here comes one who 
has strayed from their number the twentieth time 
to-day, clambering her little arms about my neck 
for a kiss. Earth has no treasure so heavenly as the 
love of a sinless child. Man seldom welcomes you 
farther than the fair vestibule of his heart, but a 
child invites you within the temple, where alone the 
iucense of unselfish love burns upon its own altar. 

It is evening. The moonbeams gladden all the 
hills. The stars are out, and I see them not. Once 
my poor eyes loved to watch those wheeling orbs till 
they seemed joyous spirits bathing in the holy light 
of the clear upper skies. Now they are not all lost 
to me; fancy, with a soul-lit look, often wanders in 
the halls of memory, where hang daguerreotypes of 
all that is bright and beautiful in Nature, from the 

11 



14 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

I should be on that dark side that Phin. accuses me of 
leaving out of rny letters ; but really there is no dark 
side here, save when my heart chances to suffer an 
eclipse from some one of its own opaque erratics, 
pride or despair! 

Smile ehidingly, please, upon your dear aunt, Mrs. 
Snow, and tell her that her letter will have to be long 
indeed to compensate the tardiness of its coming. 
She is a sweet procrastinator, though, and but for the 
loneliness of this place I should be almost reconciled 
to taking the will for the deed, just to oblige her ! 

How kind it was of you all to miss me your first 
sleigh ride or Snow-ride; and how sweet of little 
Louise to imagine the ponies looking around to see if 
I were in! May the angels keep close watch of the 
dear child for that, even as I would fain have them 
neglect a little their harps to stand guardians along 
thy way. 

I thought of you New Year's Day, New Year's 
evening, and the night of your party, until my heart 
grew luminous with the joys I fancied blending their 
lights around yours. And did I envy you? Ah, no, 
sweet one; this room, with its nine slim little beds, 
almost painful in their bleak whiteness, was only so 
much brighter and warmer having you to think of, 
and the dear ones of " Snowdrop mansion " to re- 
member, whose names all in heaven must see clus- 
tered upon my lips ere my head is bowed or one 
thought of mine has kneeled to pray. 



To 

Miss Sarah Fuller, 

Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTER IV 

A LITTLE SUNNY ISLE 

Blind Institute, New York, February, 1847. 

The love of many hearts ends in this life ; the love 
of others ends with it ; but my love for yon, Mary, 
will be new when the stars are old, and bright when 
the world has passed away. 

It is morning, glorious morning! and with the 
fleetness of fancy I am with yon again as in the beau- 
tiful bygone, listening for lessons of wisdom from the 
lips of those learned professors. Pray, in what new 
fields are you searching for gems of thought this win- 
ter? Have you still Hebrew and French with Pro- 
fessor Hoyt? And what of Cicero's Orations? His 
" Nihils " to Catiline ring in my ears yet, and will, 
so long as memory brings back to them the music of 
your voice. 

So Professor Whitlocke wept when they told him 
that the light had left my eyes forever ! Please thank 
him for those tears, Mary, and tell him for me that 
so long as memory brings back to my heart his 
benign face, his precious lessons, and all the suns 
and stars he taught me to trace, my thoughts will 
not be wholly dark. Oh, some day I must come to 
dear Lima again, if only to tread over those hallowed 
grounds, and hear once more the voices of those be- 
loved and revered teachers ! 

15 



16 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

Does the "Ladies' Literary Society" prosper? 

Your president, Eliza B , passed a day with me in 

K and I prompted to her an article for your 

paper — a poor acknowledgment, though, for the beau- 
tiful note she brought me and its grateful contents. 

Mary, you will be glad to know that, slowly, I am 
becoming indeed the philosopher that I seem, smiling 
out of grief. But sometimes this perpetual gloom is 
so heavy, that beneath its awful weight I seem sink- 
ing through space, lost, lost ! But, as Plutarch says : 
" Practice adds in all things to our powers ; " so, ere 
long I hope to become stronger and wiser, and better 
schooled to my strange lot. 

My dear father and mother came to see me, expect- 
ing to take me home with them. Dr. Munn, though, 
would not hear a word to my leaving the city then, 
entertaining, I think, a little hope of restoring my 
sight. But our souls know some things independent 
of any modus operandi for gaining knowledge, of 
which we are able to take cognizance ; and however I 
allowed hope in my heart to gild its darkness, I knew 
that I could no more escape from it than the world 
escape the night. No, Mary, that wide-awake, noon- 
day vision of darkness, that you and Carrie amused 
yourselves so much trying to interpret for me, and 
Libbie Smith finally declared to be " a new edition of 
Daniel's vision," and advised that " notes be taken of 
it immediately and placed among the archives of the 
Seminary," was, in truth, but a strange foreshadow- 
ing of what has so sadly overtaken me. Do you see ? 
— solving those astronomic problems from Legendre 
that morning, had lifted my thoughts to such Pisgah 



A LITTLE SUNNY ISLE 17 

heights as to overlook, in an instant, not Canaan, but 
the desert, alas ! and the long wilderness way that lay 
before me. One feature of it, however, was not so 
unpleasant to come upon — the mystic old shape of 
blackness, I mean, that, while filling the world with 
its gloom, amazed me with the countless specks of 
gold shining in its surface. 

This is a day of no open vision, surely; but since 
the darkness of mine and the two scenes preceding 
it have so strangely come to pass, why not look for 
all the others that in those few twinkling seconds 
were trailed before my spirit eyes ? The end, though, 
with its radiant dawn from afar melting in myriad 
rainbows through the fleeing clouds, need be no dream 
or vision, so only I have patience to wait and faith 
to claim at last that most beautiful of all promises, 
" There shall be light at evening-time." 

My dear, tender, loving mother could not be recon- 
ciled to see her first-born so bereaved; but dear 
father dried away his tears and lifted up his voice 
in thanks when I told him that I had come both to see 
and to feel that it is all for the best. But oh, to be 
ihe cause of sorrow and privation to those whom we 
love, is the most bitter cup misfortune ever presses 
to human lips; and but that the prospect of music 
here opened a way for me to save their already strug- 
gling bark the additional weight of my life-long de- 
pendence, I should have been wretched indeed. Oh, 
how surely God's ways are not as our ways, and how 
worse than vain to plan or fear for the future ! 

Your good uncle's parish is large, and his residence 
a long way off; yet, as you can imagine, he did not 



18 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

forget his unfortunate pupil in E ; and when I 

forget him, gratitude will have no more a name or a 
place in the world. His prayer and benediction hal- 
lowed our marriage, while his warm, loving words 
shed their light over dear William's way far down to 
the grave. I thought I owed him for everything then 
— minister, teacher, and friend — but oh, his great 
sympathizing heart has been to me since a thousand, 
thousand times more — even a little city of refuge 
when the world grew dark, and heaven seemed too far 
away to pity or to save. Dear Mrs. Seager, too, you 
may know, was a good angel to find in this, my wil- 
derness Marah. Her love and devotion more than 
once turned its bitter waters sweet. 

But, dearest Mary, can the hearts of my friends be 
always warming toward me as now? Will not this 
perpetual night ere long freeze the morning of love 
from me, too 1 Alas ! it must be so ; I know it, I feel 
it; and far out in the midst of this sea of darkness 
my heart is already creating for itself a little sunny 
isle with summers and flowers perennial, gathering 
thither all the beautiful things and all the loved ones 
that my eyes have ever looked on. There, beneath the 
enchanted skies of happy memory, nothing will ever 
fade or pass away. Indeed, long, long years hence, 
even myself will come back to me the same as the last 
evening, when my tearful eyes chanced to rest upon 
myself in a mirror. Ah, yes ; no matter how faded 
and old and changed my friends and all the world 
may grow, to my heart they are embalmed forever in 
a beautiful spring-time of smiling memories. Be- 
sides, heaven came very near when it took the light 



A LITTLE SUNNY ISLE 19 

and all that I loved away — so near, that those radiant 
skies, studded over with the constellated glories of 
God, seem now but a little way yonder; and when 
these clouds gather too thick around me, my soul puts 
on wings and goes to breathe the expansive airs, and 
revel amid the white scenes and ecstatic joys of spirit- 
being, until an earthly something draws me back, 
whispering, Not yet, no, not yet ! 

Adieu, dearest Mary. Long life to thee, and all 
honors and pleasures rise up in thy path ; love deeds 
make the light of thy memory, and the smile of the 
Saviour be ever the joy of thy heart ! 



To 

Miss Mary S eager, 

Lima, N. Y. 



CHAPTER V 

AS ERST I WAS 

Blind Institute, New York, March, 1847. 
Since my entrance within the walls of this gloomy 
institution the days and weeks and months would 
have lengthened their shadows over my heart far 
more slowly, but for finding here straightway a pen- 
cil-guiding card that has enabled me to keep some 
little connection with the outside world. Never so 
much as one crooked line from it, though, to you, my 
best of friends ; still, do not wrong me by supposing 
from my silence that I forget you. Oh, no. I look 
back to the hour of my solemn marriage, and lo ! you 
are there. Then William's last smile warms over my 
heart, and I see you by me still, weeping tears where 
it was impossible to console. Then, all too swift, my 
thoughts come to that awful night when I slept a 
troubled sleep, and awoke but to find that the black 
angel of Destiny had swooped down and folded me 
close in his wings. Ah, then, too, when despair had 
crushed me and I lay there all dark and hopeless, 
lacking courage to pray and waiting only for the 
death that would not come, it was you, dear, dear 
Miss Crane, who bent over me with such pity as only 
the soul of woman, stung by another's woe, can pos- 
sibly feel. It was you who whispered : " Live, live, 

20 



AS ERST 1 WAS 21 

my child ! God will take care of you. I will be your 
friend, arid you shall never want for anything." Oh, 
how my fainting spirit took refuge in those few words 
of love ; and through the long weary night-days after, 
how I learned to wait for your coming and listen for 
your welcome tread! 

The days were indeed long and lonely then; but oh, 
the loneliness that has sometimes overshadowed me 
here is beyond words. Often I have seemed stand- 
ing alone, so far removed from all objects of sight 
and sense as to belong scarcely to heaven or earth. 
Indeed, since my departure from Rochester to be 
borne I hardly knew where, until I found myself 
barred within these institution walls, I have known 
woe, God, such as the angels must shudder to 
look on! 

But, alas ! wherever we take up blessings, we must 
needs, I believe, always lay something down. The 
angel who blessed Jacob left him limping; and as 
afterward the great father of prophets passed over 
to the revengeful Esau and came to his inheritance 
all the safer for his halting, so I have come to feel 
that this humiliating privation of mine, shackling 
alike hand and foot, is to be to me a safeguard across 
some far-off Penuel to that gloomy old pillar in the 
vision that I so strangely sat up there and told you 
all about the last night I was ever to see. Miss Corn- 
stock brought it up by what she said to Tody, and 
then nothing would do, you remember, but it must 
be related from beginning to end; and as I went on, 
recalling that singular experience that for two years 
had seemed too visionary to name, how little I re- 



22 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

alized that the dark reality was even then hovering 
at the door, and ere the morning would steal in and 
wrap me forever in its gloomy folds. But, alas ! it was 
so ; and if you can believe it, my coming to this Blind 
Institution was exactly one more of the scenes that 
I pictured to you then — the fourth one, of being borne 
or carried along through the darkness. Possibly it 
is here, too, that I am ere long to face that mystic 
old presence with the shining bits of gold in its sur- 
face. Who knows what strange shapes this darkness 
may yet take on? And who knows, too, but my real 
night may yet come to be enriched and blessed, even 
as was the presaging or foreshadowing one? Or was 
I dreaming then, dreaming now, and the whole thing 
only a dream after all? Oh, would it were, and I 
might yet awaken and find the sun still in the sky, 
dear William still in the world, living and loving as 
before, lighting joys around my heart and gladdening 
the world with his smile ! 

In my letter to dear Mrs. Sparks I told her of my 
wondrous achievements not only in the fine arts, but 
in all the little every-day arts one is compelled to 
become master of here : such as spreading one's own 
bread, cutting one's own morsels, and seasoning one's 
own tea and coffee — threading a needle, too, which 
many use the tongue for. A way came to me, though, 
one day, of performing that delicate little feat with 
my fingers; and I do it so dexterously that " witty 
Fannie " suggests having it patented as an improve- 
ment upon glasses. 

Verily, darkness reduces life to a species of mathe- 
matics. Every step and every move becomes a nice 



AS ERST I WAS 23 

measurement of space which must be remembered. 
So, too, every sound and every quantity and quality — 
how wide, how far, how long, and how much. It all 
goes for discipline, though, and it is a comfort to feel 
that there is One in heaven who knows best how much 
and just what kind of it we need. 

As often as you meet good Dr. Munn, please press 
his generous hand, and tell him that my heart will 
never weary counting over his untiring efforts to 
banish the night from my eyes, and give them back 
the day in its stead. Present also my salutations to 
Mr. Howe, please, if only to thank him for his pres- 
ent through the sainted Mrs. Devoll, the rustle of 
whose gown even, as I used to hear her moving 
around amid the shadows of my room, seemed to me 
dear and sweet enough to stir a whole camp of angels. 
Tell dear Mrs. Blanchard, though, that I have shut 
her up in my heart all by herself as a sort of cheery 
thing to drape smiles upon, enshrined her in my love, 
and shall go on with her that way to the world's end ; 
first, for her kindness to one who is in heaven, and 
then, alas ! to me. 

How beautiful it was of Mr. Champion to think 
of providing me the piano ! Some good angel must 
have been standing at his elbow, surely, and moved 
his hand to the writing of the check — possibly one 
who had sometimes stood at my elbow and hearkened 
to my regrets at being able to get but one hour's prac- 
tice a day. If so, it must do him good to see me now 
having seven instead. 

Oh, would I could send some word of love to all of 
Eochester, whose blessings may be likened only to the 



24 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

waters of the dear Genesee ; and whose praises should 
be chanted in song, told in story, and the names 
of her dear ones set up " in the four gray stones " of 
the world for the pilgrims of all time to look on and 
learn what mercy and tender generosity mean ! 

But the blasts seem howling a requiem over the 
tomb of all things, and the night is far spent ; while 
my heart, poor and weak and weary, longs for so 
much of heaven as to rest one moment in the arms 
of sympathy and love, and feel the rainbow smiles of 
dear eyes melting through these clouds. Oh, for one 
whisper of love to my soul! and do thou send it, 
dearest, from that dear soft hand of thine, that I may 
sit up and feast on it in my heart, and grow rich and 
proud and happy as erst I was. 



To 

Miss Emma Crane, 

Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTER VI 

NOTHING TO DIE ! 

Blind Institute, New York, May, 1847. 

Many things are dark to sorrow, but not all. Even 
blindness has its morning and its evening. True, at 
night we do not see the stars in their blue homes, nor 
the sun at morn ; yet the world is full of voices, and 
when the eye is turned away, the ear affords new 
avenues to the heart through which the spirit, though 
a prisoner, may become elevated and happy — espe- 
cially in a place like this, where the murmurs of the 
Hudson blend with the breeze, and high in the new- 
leafed trees birds come to sing the hours away ; where, 
amid perfumed shades, gentle Nydias delighted wan- 
der, now twining garlands in their hair, and now in 
angel innocence bending their heads to smell and kiss 
the blossoms they may not pluck. 

School duties are over and all are abroad again, 
each to his favorite diversion. Kaniski, the little 
blind Pole, is at the organ. Haydn's " Creation " is 
now a creation of his own ; the spirit of its author is 
on him, and he is verily what Manfred sighed in vain 
to be : " The viewless spirit of a lovely sound." 

Here comes Miss Cynthia to tend her plants and 
gather light, as she says, from their perfumes. Her 

25 



26 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

thoughts tread always in rhymes, and whispers are 
on her lips, low and sweet as the echo of lutes or the 
bubbling of fountains. Now the air all around rings 
with school-girls' merry laugh. The old servant, who 
has been in the Institute since it was founded, is with 
them at the swing. 

" Ride ferrless, my putty crathers ! " he shouts, 
" and if the swang coomes doon, I'll be afther catchin' 
yer swate sowls all in me arms, to be sure ! " 

A school like this is a little world by itself, with pur- 
suits and dreams and fancies all its own. 

A few evenings since, I was in the little girls' 
sitting-room, when the subject of their innocent con- 
versation chanced to be the birds. 

" The canary is the sweetest singer in the world," 
said Cassie. 

" That may be," answered Lizzie, " but his feathers 
are not half so soft and pretty as the grasshopper's." 

" Oh ! " exclaimed one more experienced, " the 
grasshopper is not a bird ! " 

" Yes, he is a bird, too ! " continued Lizzie. " In 
the country I have felt them fly against my head 
many a time. My hands could never catch one, 
but sister Mary used to tell me that they were a 
pretty gold and green, and she wished I could see 
them." 

Another time I heard grave little Mattie saying to 
Angie : " Do you know that when you speak a lie, 
the guilty feeling comes out all over your face, and 
those who see you know that you are telling a 
story?" 

" No," said Angie, " I did not know that. But I 



NOTHING TO DIE 27 

have often heard mamma say to little brother : ' You 
are guilty; I can see it in your eyes/ My eyes are 
closed, you know, and she never said that way to 
me." 

" No," continued Mattie, " but it is so ; whatever we 
think and feel comes out on our faces, and that is 
the way God sees our hearts and knows all that we are 
thinking. " 

The other morning I had been amusing a group of 
little boys by describing an elephant to them; and 
when done, to my amazement Master Willie ex- 
claimed : 

" I could never feel him over with my hands, but I 
should just like to mount an elephant once and walk 
him over ! " 

" Yes," suggested little McMicken, " but faith, and 
you would want a guide, or you might be coming 
down one of the two sides of him before you would 
know it ! " 

" No, sir," answered Willie ; " I guess I have come 
down steeper hills than he is, and higher ones, too, 
and without falling, either ! " 

" Ah," ventured little Mac again, " but you might 
tumble into one of those big ears of his, and never 
get out ! " 

The sun has at last veiled his splendors behind the 
hills, save here and there a truant beam, lingering as 
if reluctant to quit the world until all in it have seen 
their light. The past and the present are as the two 
sides to a pane of glass, impossible to see the one 
without seeing the other; and I am thinking of the 
November morning Mr. Loder left me here. Two 



28 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

days wore away, and then came the Sabbath. Dur- 
ing service in the little chapel I rose and knelt with 
the rest, but heard nothing. My thoughts were away, 
away, away ; and I said in my soul : 

" To die is nothing, 
But to live, and not see, is misfortune." 

When the organ was still and the last one had left, 
I retraced my steps slowly to the parlor, where all 
were social and happy as mortals may be ; but, alas ! 
my heart was too full for words and too burning for 
tears. Presently a tread was heard inside the door, 
and quick as thought a dozen or more voices were 
exclaiming : 

" Oh, Mr. Dean! Mr. Dean! have you come? How 
glad we are! Have you brought a book? What is 
it, please, and how long will you read to us this 
time?" 

But, espying me in a remote part of the room, look- 
ing, doubtless, like one whose soul had gone out of 
her, he seemed to answer them only by asking of one 
and another my name, which no one could pronounce, 
but told him instead : 

" She is a young widow, and blind, and has just 
come here from Eochester." 

In an instant he was sitting beside me, and, taking 
both of my hands tenderly in his, he exclaimed : 

" My dear child ! I understand it all. My friend 
Senator Backus wrote me that you were coming, and 
I have been looking for you this month back. Why, 
I saw you here yesterday and passed you several 
times; but your face and your manner betray so 



NOTHING TO DIE 29 

little of your privation, that I never dreamed of your 
not seeing! " 

In a few days lie brought his lovely daughter, Mrs. 
Augusta Dean Buckley, to see me, to whom I am in- 
debted for the little all I have seen of New York. I 
owe her, too, for a sail down the bay, a week among 
the elms of Newark, and visits to her own pleasant 
home almost without number. Indeed, her friendship 
has been to me here what Mungo Parke's one flower 
was to him in the desert. 

One evening Mr. Dean took me, with a friend of 
his, to hear Dr. Dewey, whose fascinating discourses 
you read to me last winter. I had heard that he is 
not so eloquent in the pulpit as with his pen — that, 
like Goldsmith, he reasons best when alone; but a 
more heart-healing discourse I have verily never 
listened to. It was his last sermon in New York; 
but they say he leaves with his people, and bears 
away with him, a name set around with good deeds 
like a diadem of honor. 

Owing to the great distance, I have not yet been to 
hear Miss Julia's friend, Dr. Whitehouse; nor good 
Dr. Muhlenberg either, who has set the wounded 
hearts of all time to singing : 

" I would not live aVay ; I ask not to stay- 
Where storm after storm rises dark o'er the way." 

My dear Miss Guernsey, I might continue this let- 
ter very much longer if only to express, over and 
over, with what warmth my heart cherishes its every 
memory of you, even from the morning when I saw 
you first among the flowers by your Pittsford home, 



30 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

up to our meeting in Kochester, when the flowers of 
a lifetime lay scattered around me, all blighted and 
dead, and myself prisoner to despair that barred hope 
and well-nigh shut away heaven. 



To 

Miss Ellen Guernsey, 

Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTER VII 

WORTH THE DOING 

Brooklyn, L. I., June, 1847. 

Ah, what a world of beautiful bygones the name 
of Carrie Bannister awakens to me! Like a new- 
found " Open Sesame," it unbars the heavy gates to 
the past, and floods in upon my night a thousand seas 
of skies and stars, bordered with purple dawns and 
dewy eves. 

Carrie, forgive your roommate Helen, even now, 
for all her unpretty treatment of you ! Or have you 
forgotten the saucy way she had of rushing in from 
recitation, tossing her books upon the table, and shak- 
ing you until those tasteful braids of your golden 
hair came tumbling down; and then, to make all 
well again, or bad worse, nearly smothered you with 
her kisses? "Aivful! " I hear you exclaim again, like 
an echo from that beautiful long, long ago. But, 
sweet Carrie, as I loved you then, I love you now, for 
no change has, at least, come over the spirit of my 
feelings. 

Perhaps it is wrong, but everywhere I try to per- 
suade myself that the fault is in the place instead of 
my eyes, and I should see again well enough if the 
blinds were only thrown open or the lights brought 
in. But, oh, it is not so. The windows to the house I 

31 



32 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

live in are surely darkened, and no light is left me 
save the unborrowed lustre of my soul's own few 
jewels, and the mingling rays of those spirit-stars, 
Love and Hope, which, God be praised, never set! 
Cheered by their light, Milton wove his celestial 
strains ; Gough pursued botany, culled his flowers, 
and arranged his plants ; the Swiss Huber tended his 
bees; Buret chiselled marble; and Giovanni Gonelli 
moulded clay into forms that, to his gentle touch, 
seemed to breathe. 

Was St. Paul blind? I believe Hannah More, in 
her beautiful essay upon him, thinks he was. If so, 
he must have managed to write better than I do, or 
there was little need of his explaining to the Corin- 
thians that he had saluted them with his own hand. 

The last six months I have been drumming a piano 
seven, and sometimes eleven, hours out of the twenty- 
four ; and now, when I see how little I have acquired 
that is really useful, I am ready to exclaim with the 
old seminary cook — dost remember 

" Oh, what an inglorious way of spending one's 
time ! " Music is, indeed, a science of difficult attain- 
ment; and, to excel, even the most gifted must com- 
mence it early; for however well one may under- 
stand the theory, manual skill is still wanting. Ah, 
yes ; and it will be a long time yet ere my fingers go 
dancing through the mazes of sound from the low 
flutter of the miller, or the far-off droppings of fall- 
ing water, up, up to that highest note in all nature, 
which Professor Whitlocke, you remember, once de- 
monstrated to be the noise the mosquito makes beat- 
ing the air with his wings. 



WORTH THE DOING 33 

I need not tell you, Carrie, that, like the Vicar of 
Wakefield, I have " a knack at hoping " ; and I 
know, too, that God blesses just as much when He 
takes away as when He gives. But, oh, this heart of 
mine is so hard to stay resigned ! I awaken and coax 
every thought from its repining ; and then, before the 
day is half gone, my soul is overwhelmed again with 
such passionate longings as no one this side of 
heaven can possibly know save my poor, poor heart 
and I. Alas ! my poor, poor heart and I ! doomed to 
the double grief of mourning the loved and the lost, 
and forever bewailing the light and the day ! 

Your dear brother Marshall went as he predicted — 
" Called from a land strange and weary " ; and it so 
chanced that I was just finishing his own lines at the 
close of his obituary when " the tall Doctor," as you 
used to call him, came up the drive. Seeing that he 
had discerned the traces of tears in my eyes, I gave 
it to him to read, and handing it back, he said re- 
flectively : 

" To be buried, though, where flowers bloom and 
birds sing always, seems hardly a grave at all, but 
a long sweet sleep beneath mossy turfs, warm in the 
sunlight above." 

What a vivid contrast to the one so soon afterward 
opened for him by the shore of Ontario, and how 
unconsciously drawn! He had been practicing then 
long enough to warrant talking of our wedding, post- 
poned from time to time since we were in our teens, 
and, strange to say, it was all settled before that in- 
terview ended. Because of his immense seniority of 
three little days, the privilege of appointing the hour 



34 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

and the day was accorded to him, and pledged this 
time over the words : "If we are both living when 
that day and hour come." . . . 

I have been making a little visit here to some 
friends formerly of Eochester. To-morrow, though, 
I return to the institution to drag and drum away the 
days until July. Would rather I could say, I go to 
chisel the days into deeds more worthy to stand along 
the gallery of a life. But, dearest Carrie, do give me 
at least the joy of a little letter from you there, whose 
sunny thoughts may the while toll my owly ones away 
to those hope-lighted hill-tops, dreams of which still 
make the future so bright before you, and all its 
symbols so big with joyous meaning. 

You recollect the " vision " that swept before my 
spirit-eyes one day at Lima, just as you were entering 
from your recitation and I starting for mine ; and al- 
though so few seconds in passing, left upon me, as I 
told you, the seeming weight of a thousand years'? 
Well, that was but a strange foreshadowing of the 
gloomy scenes that I am wading through now, 
and have been wading through, alas ! since that 
fated July moon that first watched Death rob my 
heart poor, and then darkness spread her wings 
of night over all my life. In the vision, though, the 
darkness was followed by scene after scene more than 
suggestive of toil, and possibly despite the blindness 
I may yet find something in the world to do worth 
the doing. 



To 

Miss Carrie Bannister, 

Vienna, N. Y. 



CHAPTER VIII 

BY THE BLUE ONTAKIO 

Blind Institute, New York, June, 1847. 

The sun set upon the sea ; the moon rose above the 
hills ; the stars came out, smiling through the clouds 
like bands of angels with linked hands flying through 
the heavens. The reading hour past, we sang an 
evening hymn, prayers were said, the bell rang for 
ten, and all laid them down to sleep. To Him who sits 
enthroned in the abodes of light and love, I heard 
Mary's lips whispering of mother, home, and heaven. 
Perchance she is dreaming now of faces imaged on 
her heart long ago ; and the sunny hours of child- 
hood, with their visions of joy, have come again to 
possess her thoughts. 

It is midnight, that deep hushed hour when the soul 
turns back upon itself, and all the thoughts and feel- 
ings are chased homeward by incidents of the past. 
Now the night-dews hang lightly on all the flowers, 
and the green leaves in moony shadows are trembling 
on the walls ; and the lengthened forms of the waving 
boughs are crawling on the floor, as the shades of 
melancholy come creeping o'er my soul. Away yon- 
der on the bosom of the Hudson the lights of the 
sky are twinkling, and so up in heaven, on the foun- 
tains that well by the Throne, the smiles of God are 

35 



36 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

playing. The world of spirits is open to ours, and 
ours to theirs. Even now loved ones, departed, are 
in smiling distance, and their blent voices fall on my 
ear like the pulses of a lute when the waking hand has 
passed away. They come in the night-time, when 
Silence holds her spell-like reign, and in unseen com- 
munion spirit doth with spirit blend. 

Night, too, is the time for prayer. Then the ear 
of Heaven is nearer bent, and the full sad heart, by 
faith, breathes a freer air, and leaping upward gets 
new and clearer glimpses of the Christian's better 
life. So Jesus, wearied with the toils of the day, oft 
at night climbed lonely Olivet, apart to pray and talk 
with His Father in heaven. Seraphs who had grown 
old in His love were with Him there, and while He 
kneeled upon the damp earth, their spirit hands dried 
His tears away. 

In lonely hours like these, dear mother, I think of 
you until it seems that you must be near, and put out 
my hands but to greet the empty air. Oh, think of 
me, mother, when the morning breaks, when the noon 
is bright, and when the day declines ; and pray for 
me, too, lest, so long banished from the light and so 
far, far away, I forget that God is good, and sorrow 
drive me to despair. Oh, write me often, dear mother, 
and say always and forever that I shall at least have 
a place in your love and a home in your pitying 
heart ; say that you and dear father, sisters and you 
all, never cease to think of me; sweet Xin and May 
and little brother speak of me in their play, and count 
the days, even, until I shall return. 

It is wrong to be weary of this place. Indeed, had 



BY THE BLUE ONTARIO 37 

Charity herself come down to build on earth a home 
for her children, the dwelling were scarcely more 
fair or its inhabitants more lovely and pure. But, 
oh, my spirit lingers forever by the blue Ontario, 
whose green shore inurns the stirring memories of 
a heart that was all mine own ! 

When the sun was setting in the west, slanting his 
beams among the hills of the dear Genesee, I was 
walking alone among the trees, and the dear old gar- 
dener brought me pityingly these flowers; and now 
while the birds are making isolate chirps preparatory 
to their matins of the morn, I steal softly into your 
room, mother, and lay them on your pillow. May 
their sweet perfumes make you dream of a land 
where flowers never fade, and those whom we love 
never die; where sorrow never comes, and all tears 
shall be dried from our eyes. 



To 

Mrs. 0. Aldrich, 

" Stone Cottage," 

Mumford, N. Y. 



CHAPTER IX 

PROUDEST STREAM 

Rochester, N. Y., August, 1847. 

The principal of the institute opposed my making 
the journey to Rochester without an escort — called 
it presumptuous; and looking at myself out in the 
world alone, with heart bereft and eyes veiled down, 
it did seem a little preposterous, surely. But per- 
suading away his fears and objections, helped to 
silence my own, and at last, feeling that to tarry one 
day more within those gloomy walls would certainly 
strangle me, I looked to Heaven for trust and for 
guidance, when the promise, " He shall give His an- 
gels charge concerning thee," came to my thoughts as 
though every word in it had been written expressly 
for me, and I said, What need I more? Their care 
was needful, too, for, besides not seeing, I began my 
journey quite unencumbered with money, ordinarily 
so essential to the traveller. 

The good men do should be known, their better 
deeds oftener told. The world has bad notions of it- 
self ; it is not a selfish, but an unselfish, world ; a kind, 
a loving, and a forgiving world, with more sunshine 
than storms and more smiles than frowns or tears. 
It is not the best world we are to know, but it is 
next the best, and only a step lies between. Heaven 
is very near, so near, indeed, that loved ones who in- 

38 



PROUDEST STREAM 39 

habit there are with us still. Stars, unseen, hang over 
us by day; and so spirits from beyond the sky smile 
along our pathway, whispering words, kind as heaven, 
on every breeze that fans our brow. We hear and 
follow them, but too often, like Samuel, fancying 
some Eli calling. 

Wishing to stop at Catskill, I went on board the 
Utica. Your noble father, hearing of my sudden de- 
parture, hastened and met me there, with blessings 
in his heart and in his hand. " May God preserve 
and protect you, and in due time bring you back to 
us ! " he said, and departed. 

The sun went down. The moon and stars were in 
the sky. The air was calm and inviting even to 
spirits of purity. Those whose eyes are folded down 
have a quicker sense than sight, by which they know 
and feel when a fixed gaze is on them. Only one 
passenger remained with me in the cabin. At length, 
with her babe in her arms, she came over, and plac- 
ing her lips close to my ear, as if she thought me 
deaf, screamed: 

"Be you blind! " 

" Certainly," I said, smiling. And then, after ob- 
serving me a moment, she continued in the same high 
tone: 

" Well, I don't judge from your looks you feel very 
bad about it." 

" No," I replied, " grieving never restores its ob- 
ject ; and better we learn to bear, and blame not, that 
which we cannot change." 

Presently a miss, with a voice like music's self, 
came and placed her little hand in mine, saying : 



40 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

"It is delightful out. I know you cannot see the 
things we are passing, but if you will come with me I 
will describe them to you." She took my arm, and 
we were hardly seated on deck when the gallant cap- 
tain joined us, talking familiarly of the beautiful 
scenery which everywhere adorns the Hudson, 

"Proudest stream that journeys to the sea." 

" Yonder," he said, " is Washington Irving's de- 
lightful residence, so buried in shrubs and trees that 
one can only see the steeple, which has on it a 
weathercock taken from the ship in which Major 
Andre was to have sailed." 

A gentleman is most eloquent when he has attentive 
lady listeners, and while we rode over the rippling 
waters my thoughts gathered many new and beautiful 
images from the eloquent lips of Captain Penfield; 
and memory, the mind's mirror, will long treasure 
daguerreotypes of them all. 

My stay in Catskill with Mrs. Wilson and her 
daughters, at their cottage home, was like a scene in 
a fairy-land ; and as " distance lends enchantment to 
the view," so time enhances its departed joys. I 
found there, too, my sainted friend Mrs. Devoll, 
whom I met first by my William's death-bed — and I 
see her there still, with her white kerchief folded 
across her snowy breast, all pure like the love-light 
on her heavenly face. When I left Kochester her 
home was unbroken, and her life, like her heart, 
crowded with blessings ; but so soon, alas ! she, too, is 
in mourning, and her loving eyes weeping tears for 
one who may come back to gladden them nevermore. 



PROUDEST STREAM 41 

On board the Alida for Albany and surrounded 
with strangers, I began to fear lest Mr. Dawson 
should not receive my note and meet me at the land- 
ing. But the angels never fail to do their bidding, and 
" Lo, I am with you alway," bends a light over every 
place. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas and their daughter, of 
New York, were on board, and having seen me so 
often at church with you and your dear father, they 
very kindly introduced themselves ; and it is not too 
much to say that, having them and their society, I 
had all things. When we stopped, they would have 
taken me with them to Congress Hall, but the good 
captain said that in case my friend did not come for 
me, he had promised to see me safe at his house. 

All left the saloon, but I had not waited long when 
a gentleman with a kindly tread approached, saying : 
" Excuse me, but your friend, Mr. Dawson, is in 
Michigan, and your note to him being handed to me, 
I have come in his stead to take you to his resi- 
dence. Mrs. Dawson is at home." I thanked him. 
He secured my baggage, gave me his arm, and we 
walked away talking so familiarly that I hardly 
thought of him as a stranger. I knew by his voice 
that he had seen many years, while his words re- 
vealed, as Pinckney says, " a heart that can feel and 
a hand that can act." He left, promising either to 
send his son or come himself in the morning with a 
carriage to see me to the depot. My ministering an- 
gel this time was Mr. Thurlow Weed, of Albany, and 
just for that one beautiful guidance to my steps, may 
his own never fall upon worse entanglements than lie 
in paths o'er-thickly strewn with roses ! 



42 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

In the forenoon my seat in the car was shared by 
an aged sire, who beguiled the hours with incidents 
from his own life. In the afternoon a Scotch gentle- 
man from the banks of the Clyde entertained me with 
historic pictures of the Highlands. He was present 
when Leopold, in sable robes for his Charlotte, was 
ambassador for George IV. to Edinburgh. The 
splendid streets and edifices, the dazzling' crowd, the 
royal equipages, the high-headed and high-souled 
officers, the elegantly set tables and brilliant guests, 
he described as though with them but yesterday. 
Whoever he was, his happiness was greatest when 
contributing most to the happiness of others. He 
knew, seemingly, all the Scottish bards by heart ; and 
it was worth a day's journey just to hear him repeat 
snatches from Burns in the full spirit of the great 
poet, who was, he said, one of the noblest of nature's 
own nobility. 

At Pittsford, resting by the way with friends of 
lighter days, a note from Mrs. Holland invited me for 
a time to her beautiful home, where we read, ride, 
walk, and talk the days away. Lizzie and Mary, too, 
with looks of love on their faces such as pitying an- 
gels wear, come often with gentle hands to lead me by 
pleasant ways, now where the Genesee leaps thunder- 
ing from the rocks, and now where it winds noiseless 
to the sleeping lake, always mentioning in words like 
pictures every tree, shrub, and flower. If Oswald's 
Corinne was more eloquent, she was certainly not 
more kind; and I often think listening to Lizzie's de- 
scriptions of things almost sweeter than looking on 
them with one's own eyes. She tells me when we are 



PROUDEST STREAM 43 

at the corner of a new building, walking to the other 
gives its breadth ; and knowing the number of stories, 
imagination readily makes the view her own, save 
perhaps a little too much embellished, as fancy in- 
clines always to the charitable error of making every- 
thing the brightest possible. To-morrow, one of my 
sisters will meet me here, and I hope ere the night 
to be in " Stone Cottage," surrounded by those so near 
and so dear that no distance, no time, and no cloud 
can ever estrange their love or make them one mo- 
ment forget. 

Please say to your dear father that the angels came 
along all the way, even as I believed they would ; be- 
sides, that Director's card of his proved a little pass- 
port, at sight of which captains, railroad conductors, 
and all, instead of presenting their bills, hastened to 
inquire where I would go, where stop, etc. 

Grateful memories are the most heavenly inhabi- 
tants of the human breast; and though clouds have 
shut away the stars, it is still a blessing to exist in so 
bright and so good a world, and a joy, surely, to live 
in a land so kind and free as ours. 



To 

Mrs. Augusta Dean Buckley, 

New York, 



42 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

In the forenoon my seat in the car was shared by 
an aged sire, who beguiled the hours with incidents 
from his own life. In the afternoon a Scotch gentle- 
man from the banks of the Clyde entertained me with 
historic pictures of the Highlands. He was present 
when Leopold, in sable robes for his Charlotte, was 
ambassador for George IV. to Edinburgh. The 
splendid streets and edifices, the dazzling' crowd, the 
royal equipages, the high-headed and high-souled 
officers, the elegantly set tables and brilliant guests, 
he described as though with them but yesterday. 
Whoever he was, his happiness was greatest when 
contributing most to the happiness of others. He 
knew, seemingly, all the Scottish bards by heart; and 
it was worth a day's journey just to hear him repeat 
snatches from Burns in the full spirit of the great 
poet, who was, he said, one of the noblest of nature's 
own nobility. 

At Pittsford, resting by the way with friends of 
lighter days, a note from Mrs. Holland invited me for 
a time to her beautiful home, where we read, ride, 
walk, and talk the days away. Lizzie and Mary, too, 
with looks of love on their faces such as pitying an- 
gels wear, come often with gentle hands to lead me by 
pleasant ways, now where the Genesee leaps thunder- 
ing from the rocks, and now where it winds noiseless 
to the sleeping lake, always mentioning in words like 
pictures every tree, shrub, and flower. If Oswald's 
Corinne was more eloquent, she was certainly not 
more kind ; and I often think listening to Lizzie's de- 
scriptions of things almost sweeter than looking on 
them with one's own eyes. She tells me when we are 



PROUDEST STREAM 43 

at the corner of a new building, walking to the other 
gives its breadth ; and knowing the number of stories, 
imagination readily makes the view her own, save 
perhaps a little too much embellished, as fancy in- 
clines always to the charitable error of making every- 
thing the brightest possible. To-morrow, one of my 
sisters will meet me here, and I hope ere the night 
to be in " Stone Cottage/' surrounded by those so near 
and so dear that no distance, no time, and no cloud 
can ever estrange their love or make them one mo- 
ment forget. 

Please say to your dear father that the angels came 
along all the way, even as I believed they would ; be- 
sides, that Director's card of his proved a little pass- 
port, at sight of which captains, railroad conductors, 
and all, instead of presenting their bills, hastened to 
inquire where I would go, where stop, etc. 

Grateful memories are the most heavenly inhabi- 
tants of the human breast; and though clouds have 
shut away the stars, it is still a blessing to exist in so 
bright and so good a world, and a joy, surely, to live 
in a land so kind and free as ours. 



To 

Mrs. Augusta Dean Buckley, 

New York, 



CHAPTEE X 



WHATEVEK BETIDE 



Rochester, N. Y., August, 1847. 

By another turn in the kaleidoscope of Fate I am 
back in Rochester, back in the very house where two 
summers agone life's last joy was counted out to me, 
and love's last whisper breathed into my ear, so low 
as to be only a little sound for memory to keep. 

You remember the tall student who came to see me 

at L on the day of that memorable celebration 

of ours. After completing his medical studies in 

R , he went East for the lectures that gave him a 

diploma, and returning, opened his office in the new 
Minerva building. Six months later, hurrying to a 
patient, he was thrown from a carriage. Before they 
brought him here the carpet to the side parlor yonder 
was covered with white, and a couch brought down 
and made ready for his coming. Three days yet re- 
mained before our wedding — three little days. In 
Pittsf ord, eight miles away, when the shadows of that 
day were gathering in my room, I went to the mir- 
ror to try on once more that gauziest of mists, the 
bridal veil. Satisfied at last with the graceful fall 
of the folds and the dainty dangling of the flowers, 
I lingered looking at myself through the gauzy mist, 
and picturing my William, tall and beautiful, mov- 

44 



WHATEVER BETIDE 45 

ing down the aisle; our meeting at the altar; his 
stooping to take my hand, and bending his proud 
head for just one reassuring glance from my love- 
lighted eyes, hardly able to more than lift the fringes 
to their lids beneath the fervent flashes of his. 

So I was lingering, and so I was dreaming, when, 
if from out the gathering shades one had hissed in 
my ear all the signs ever crooned against trying on 
the bridal veil, my reverie could hardly have been 
checked by a more vivid premonition of evil. Quick 
as thought I caught the snowy thing down from my 
head, and stood there holding it in my hand, hardly 
daring to look into the mirror again, lest, in place of 
my joyous self, I should behold there now the crouch- 
ing form of some hideous disappointment. Natu- 
rally, I thought first of the one dearest in the world ; 
and straightway conjured up " what ifs " and " may- 
bes " enough to dislodge any heart save one fortified 
with a devotion that from our first meeting had left 
never a disappointment nor a slow-coming, even, to 
recall. " No, no," I said, half whispering and half 
breathing the words to myself, " after that solemn 
replighting of our vows the last evening we met, end- 
ing with, ' If we are both living when that day and 
that hour come/ whatever betide, he is not going to 
play deserter to me now ; " and I could have laughed 
that the recollection of an omen too childish to re- 
peat should have wrought such an effect upon me but 
a moment before. 

Still, as if to help chase something from the at- 
mosphere, or from myself, that could not or would not 
depart, I commenced humming gayly the fragment 



46 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

of a song, while I folded the veil and laid it away like 
a thing too holy for mortal eyes to look on. Then I 
ran down into the yard for a little walk among the 
trees, too absorbed to notice anything till I came to 
the pool made by the water trickling from the rocks 
on the upper side of the drive. There, from the 
patch of sky above, down through the tree-tops had 
sifted one bright little star. 

" Ah," I said, " thou sweet harbinger of good," al- 
most stooping to scoop the silvery thing up in my 
hands, " one star alone tells always of another soon 
to appear, and peradventure my William is coming 
to-night, instead of writing, as he said." So, fly- 
ing from one superstitution, I had seized upon an- 
other, and was already smiling anew over the sweet 
hopes Love had been so long twining around my 
heart, when a call for me broke the stillness, and with 
such meaning in its tone that my feet seemed riveted 
to the spot, and my lips refused to answer. Alas! 
word had come that far away in the city Doctor De- 
Kroyft, my William, had fallen, and lay there bleed- 
ing and possibly dying. I hastened to him. 

Our wedding-day came, the hour even, and by his 
bedside, with the angels standing around all white and 
holy, eager to bear him away, our marriage was 
confirmed — our marriage, William's and mine, that 
named us one, while our two lives were fast drifting 
apart. He told me he must go ; but oh, how I clung 
to him still, mingling my soul's life with his in tears 
and promises henceforth and forever to be only wait- 
ing, waiting, waiting! The white-winged moments, 
too, how they flew while I gathered up the manna 



WHATEVER BETIDE 47 

fragments and broken whispers of love, storing them 
away in my weak heart for the long, lonely years to 
come ! 

The sun went down, and through the red light 
that filled the room the shining way opened up before 
him ; and motioning his dear mother nearer, he whis- 
pered : 

" Mother, behold thy child ; and child, thy mother." 
Then resting one hand tenderly upon my bowed head, 
and pointing with the other to the beautiful beyond, 
a heavenly smile trembled on his lips, and he was 
gone! 

They made him a grave by the green shore, where, 
amid the music of the waves, our hearts first learned 
to love; and we left him there, embalmed forever in 
the beautiful past and its hallowed memories. Then, 
sad and alone, I sought again this fated spot where 
my hold on life had left me. The garden walks, 
William's room with his books and papers, and the 
parlor below where love's last look was measured to 
my heart, are all I remember until nearly a month had 
elapsed and I was to leave. 

My trunks were packed ; the servant was to call me 
early and see me to the car. I bade all good-night 
and good-by. By the bureau in my room here I 
paused to read an obituary of Doctor DeKroyft, 
brought me that evening printed on white satin. An 
error, naming the hours the Doctor survived our mar- 
riage as so many days, made me look up just in time 
to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as the blaze 
of the little night-lamp went out. Finding myself left 
so suddenly alone with the dark, I hastened to the 



48 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

window, and pushing open the blinds, I sat down 
there for a moment, but lingered, reflecting, and 
watching the moon silvering her own pathway 
through the clouds until her light, too, went down. 
Then crossing my hands on the sill, I rested my head 
on them, heeding little save the bell that tolled the 
lengthening hours, until the lake breeze had changed 
to a chilling blast. Keaching out for my shawl and 
rising to fold it about me, I saw that I was benumbed 
with the cold ; and going over to the bed, I lay down, 
not thinking to sleep lest I should fail to be called, 
and disappoint the friends who were to meet me eight 
miles away. But wondering if the night would ever, 
ever end, I slept, and failing to be called, I slept on 
and on; and when I awoke to consciousness again 
the light had gone from my eyes. I could no more 
open them than roll the mountains from their places. 
Blind! Oh, that awful word! Like the thunders of 
Niagara, it was more than I could hear. Death even 
was merciful, and left me still the light and the day ; 
but now all, all was turned into blackness, and despite 
hope, despite reason, despite everything, my en- 
tombed self wrestled with myself until my spent heart 
sank within me. But oh, words can never reach the 
feelings shut up in my soul; imagination can never 
paint them! Blighted hope, sorrow, wounded love, 
grief, and despair, clad in hues of darkness, all 
brooded upon my silent heart, while bitter fear was 
in all my thoughts. What will become of me, so 
helpless, and so dependent in the world? Must char- 
ity supply my wants? will there be always some 
hand to lead? have the blind ever a home in any 



WHATEVER BETIDE 49 

heart? does anything ever cheer them? are their lives 
always useless ? is there anything they can do ? So I 
questioned and wondered, until with opiates they 
quieted my distracted thoughts, lured the pain from 
my eyes, and I slept and dreamed of other days when 
arm in arm we paced the walks around the old sem- 
inary, talking confidingly of bright realities in the 
future. The chime of the welcome bells rang out 
upon the balmy air, and the halls echoed again with 
the familiar tread of many feet and mingling voices, 
all buoyant with hope and love. Then, alas ! I awak- 
ened from it all, as I have thousands of times since, 
only to find all the dreams of my youth and its bright 
morning swallowed up in a life-long night of years. 



To 

Miss Clara Weight, 

Lima, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XI 



ONE BY ONE 



Pultneyville, N. Y., November, 1847. 

It is hallowed ground to me here ; and how I long 
to look abroad upon the scenes, once so beautiful to 
love, and now to memory so dear! The earth itself 
hath a wail in it for sorrow, and pitying mine, the 
blasts of the night have been hushed to muffled drums, 
and the winds and the waves, even, voiced to accord. 
It is a funereal march they are beating, and would I 
could fall into line and wend my way to a mound over 
the hill yonder, alone and mournful as the shadow 
keeping step by my side. Passing away is truly a 
part of earth. It lends a death-like air to our gay 
enjoyments, and mingles sorrow with our cups of 
bliss. It stops forever our happy labors, and frus- 
trates our choicest plans. Those whom we learn to 
love die, and the cold earth presses the lips we have 
loved to kiss, and freezes the hearts tuned to beat 
in unison with our own. 

Two summers have come and gone since my Will- 
iam died in Rochester. We brought him here and 
laid him down in the grave to sleep close by his 
childhood home, where the quick winds and white 
waves of Ontario come swelling to the shore, and high 

50 



ONE BY ONE 51 

above its silvery bosom clouds, dove-like, are hang- 
ing. One moon had hardly waned when the angels 
came again, and, while I slept, darkened my weeping 
eyes forever. Oh, Lizzie, was sorrow ever so deep, 
was misery ever so severe! Hope departed, and an 
unyielding blight settled on all the joys my heart had 
wed, leaving me only a sombred past and the light 
of memory to mark its ruin by. But with the world 
and all in it veiled from my view, and every hope 
standing tombstone to itself, I have still God for my 
Father, the angels for friends, and Jesus an elder 
Brother. The pure homes in many hearts, too, are 
mine, dwellings dearer than all the world beside. 

Milton once said to his favorite daughter, " It mat- 
ters little whether one has a star to guide or an angel 
hand to lead." But what say to Miss Maggie Loed- 
yard here, by whose persuasion sweet this morning 
finds me at her father's delightful " Lake Cottage," 
seated soft where Lombard poplars lift their tapering 
tops almost to prop the skies ; the willow, locust, and 
horse-chestnut spread their branches, and flowers 
never cease to blossom. With Maggie, all joys are 
less than the one joy of doing kindness. Her smile 
makes the sunshine of many hearts, and the cloudless 
dawning of their new enjoyments, while I have surely 
a star in her love, and something more than an angel 
in herself. Now she reads to me, gives me her arm 
for a walk, or anon with her harp and tuneful voice 
unchains the soul of song ; the while covering all my 
thoughts with gladness, until I almost forget my night 
of years, and live in a land where tears are unknown, 
save those, perchance, the pitying angels weep. 



52 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

It is Thanksgiving Day, and Maggie has been read- 
ing to me the Book of Job ; and this hour, more than 
ever, my soul looks up in thankfulness to God for the 
Bible, Heaven's purest gift to mortals. It is the one 
star of eternity whose life-giving rays come twinkling 
down to this nether sphere, erring man's guide to wis- 
dom, virtue, and heaven. 

The Bible is the Book of books. In comparison, 
Byron loses his fire, Milton his soarings, Gray his 
beauties, and Homer his grandeur and his figures. 
No eye like rapt Isaiah's ever pierced the veil of the 
future; no tongue ever reasoned like sainted Job's; 
no poet ever sung like Israel's shepherd king; and 
God never made a man more wise than Solomon. The 
words of the Bible are pictures of immortality, dews 
from the tree of knowledge, pearls from the river of 
Life, and gems of celestial thought. As the moaning 
shell whispers of the sea, so the Bible breathes of 
love in heaven, the home of angels, and joys too pure 
to die. Oh, would I had read it more when my poor 
eyes could see! Would more of its pure precepts 
were bound about my heart, and I had wisdom to 
make them the mottoes of my life! 

Dear Lizzie, I fear I have written you too long and 
too sad a letter, and I hasten to atone with the brief- 
est x>ossible good-by. All thanks to dear Mr. Burr, 
and the same measure of love to his sweet little wife, 
for the joint invitation that makes the holidays some- 
thing so beautiful to look forward to. The Santa 
Claus hint deserves to be mentioned also. Maggie de- 
sires me to say, though, that his saintship is no 
stranger to the chimneys of " Lake Cottage," and 



ONE BY ONE 53 

urges that I stay here. However, dear Lizzie, my 
heart is set upon coming to you, if only for the pleas- 
ure of passing the first Christmas with you and Mr. 
Burr in your new and beautiful home. 



P. S. — Water is to nature what melancholy is to the 
soul: beautiful in its mildness, but terrific and fear- 
ful in its wrath. When I began my letter, Ontario 
was sleeping in her beauty; but since then she has 
foamed and roared like a thing of very madness! 
Her long circling waves have overturned the sea- 
man's home, and borne it far down where the wind- 
gods sleep, and the bones of wrecked mariners lie 
thick on the ground. 

To-day I took a long, long adieu of dear William's 
grave. Maggie led me there and left me alone, the 
while to commune with my beautiful dead ; and as the 
waves washed the bright pebbles to the shore and 
bore them back again, so the tide of memory swept 
over my heart its cherished hopes while I watched 
them fall back, one by one, into the sea of life, to re- 
turn no more, nevermore! 



To 

Mrs. C. A. Burr, 

Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XII 

SO QUICK, ALAS ! 

Rochester, N. Y., December, 1847. 
But for the injunction of Kaine, " Never begin a 
letter with I or You/ 9 this would assuredly have 
opened: I am passing the holidays with my friend 
Lizzie, at her new home. It was not my pleasure to 
see the dear one exchange her hand for another's, but 
I heard her breathe her heart away in vows so low 
and sweet that the angels must have hastened to re- 
cord them. Her empire now is a domestic circle, her 
rule gentleness, and by it she winneth sway over all 
who come within her borders. Her sceptre over my 
heart, though, just now she is making golden by read- 
ing me the life and letters of Goldsmith, whose poetic 
works I had husked, as Addison says, with mine own 
eyes. 

* It is safe to read authors whom one may love as 
well as their writings. Byron kindled his imagina- 
tion by the dark and turbid waters of Acheron, while 
Goldsmith wandered by the great river of common 
life, gathering his pure thoughts and poet pictures 
from the every-day scenes around him. Poor Gold- 
smith! poverty and want, it would seem, were his 
only constant friends, and his haunts must have often 
echoed with his groans while he went up the great 

54 



SO QUICK, ALAS! 55 

highway to distinction, wreathing upon his brow 
crowns woven of immortal laurels. 

A more ancient poet had for his motto, " The dar- 
ing fortune favors ! " and an American divine says : 
" In great and good pursuits it is honorable, it is 
right, to use that kind of omnipotence which says 
I icill. and the thing is done." But, my dear love, 
I am wondering how this, or any other motto, can 
apply to those doomed to gather gems of thought 
through the voices of others, or grope for them with 
their fingers, instead of flashing them into the soul 
through the starry glances of the eye ? 

In the early autumn, my charming friend, Mrs. 
Snow, came with her ponies to take me riding. We 
crossed twice the Genesee, then followed up its wind- 
ings till we came where the sun's rays were turned 
away by the forest trees. The sharp, quick noise of 
the carriage-wheels changed to a muffled rumbling. 
We rode slowly over the winding roads; all was 
sacredly silent. The hushed breeze that stirred the 
leaves seemed the breath of prayer. It was Mount 
Hope, our beautiful home for the dead; and as we 
wandered among the tombs and monuments, pausing 
to read their inscriptions in grooved and raised let- 
ters, I whispered to my heart : " How surely 

" ' The most beloved on earth 
Not long survive to-day/ " 

Dear, beautiful Mount Hope! thou art indeed a 
solemn volume, upon whose marble pages of moss- 
covered testimonies even the blind may read, and 
learn how verily the shining footprints of Him who 



56 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

conquered death are the only lights adown the dark 
and lonely way. Sweet Frankie Ball is sleeping 
there, with her baby by her side, so covetous are the 
angels of their own, and so quick, alas ! " sorrow 
treads upon the heels of joy." 

The overflowing kindness of ray Eochester friends, 
added to the watchful tenderness of all who come in 
my way. has often, often made me wonder if the 
world has not, indeed, grown better since I could see. 
Still, when the flowers unfold their leaves and the 
birds come back, there will be nothing left for me but 
to take up my line of march again to that lonely in- 
stitution. But, my one star in all Xew York, you will 
come to me there sometimes, as before — will you not ? 
and with so much of love and so much of light, the 
place, even at its worst, cannot be wholly dark. A 
stranger, and shut up in that school for the unfortu- 
nate, how found I such sweet lodgement in your sym- 
pathies, and what good spirit moved you to come so 
often to beguile my lonely hours? If one good act 
pleases God more than another, it must be such for- 
getfulness of self and such desire to make others 
happy. 

Your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Holland, have returned 
to Boston. The day previous to their departure the 
sociable of their church was held at the residence of 
the venerable Dr. Brown, upon whom the weight of 
vears has fallen so lishtlv that, although over ninetv, 

v O * 7 O * 7 

like Moses at one hundred and twenty, his force is no 
whit abated, and the heart in him seems as young and 
beautiful as ever. It was he who framed and pre- 
sented the bill to the Legislature for the abolition of 



SO QUICK, ALAS! 57 

slavery in the State of New York; and every morn- 
ing of its anniversary, with the rising of the sun, all 
the sable ones of the city gather around his house, 
chanting hymns for themselves and imploring good 
cheer and length of days for the revered champion of 
their liberty. 

Toward evening all the ladies were assembling in 
the Doctor's room, when Mrs. Holland, ignorant of the 
cause, said to him: " Why, Doctor, you seem to be the 
star of the evening, as you have been the attraction 
of the day " ; whereupon the smiling hostess uncov- 
ered and presented to her a tray of silver pieces, all 
appropriately inscribed. Their choked feelings re- 
fused words ; the light of the past was on them ; and 
with these beautiful expressions of gratitude and love 
before them, they and all present wept over the mem- 
ory of love-deeds shared, kindnesses exchanged, and 
ties soon to be severed forever. 

Later Mr. Holland came, and Dr. Brown presented 
his son, the David of his old age, for baptism ; then 
the Last Supper was spread, the cup poured, fare- 
wells were repeated, and the little party broke up, to 
assemble no more until that day when, as the Master 
said, " I drink it new with you in my Father's king- 
dom." 

To-day the liquid thunders of the falls mingle with 
the winds, and storms are gathering, as on the day 
when you came first with books and papers to read to 
me in that lonely habitatio tenebrarum. Your words 
of love were music that fell on my ear and sank down 
into my heart ; and as the flowers at eve incline their 
heads to the departing sunbeams, so evermore my 



58 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

thoughts are turning longingly to thee, my ever dear, 

dear Augusta Dean B ; and while I would not 

have those darling little ones of yours in the least 
disturbed in their worship at love's holiest altar, nor 
your heart's temple one ray less love-lighted for their 
coming, still, " if wishes had the potency of a fiat," I 
would have the first named and the first answered 
among their prayers for " dear mamma " the leisure 
and the quiet wherein to write me. 



To 

Mrs. Augusta Dean Buckley, 

New York. 



CHAPTER XIII 



KADIUS OF THE SOUL 



" Willowbank," Rochester, N. Y., March, 1848. 
We whose eyes are closed have but two divisions of 
time : a noisy night and a quiet one. Morning comes, 
and the light streams in sunny rills over all the glad- 
some earth. A little time ago we, too, awoke ere the 
sun had kissed the dews into vapor, and ran joyous to 
greet the faces of those whom we loved, refreshed and 
beautified by a night of slumber. And oh, do you re- 
member, Mary, how from the opened doors in rushed, 
like resisted waters, a flood of golden light, while 
far over the green hills the full-orbed sun showered 
his splendors, and high up the blue sky fleecy clouds 
were flying? Among the trees merry birds were 
singing, and on the flowers busy bees their nectar 
draughts were sipping ; all the insect tribes were hum- 
ming, and we, too, in girlhood glee, went singing : 

" How joyful, oh, how joyful is the morning ! " 

But now it is not so ; our night is unending. " Days 
steal on us and steal from us." We sleep and awaken, 
but no change comes. No flowers spring up in our 
path ; no garden walks nor fields unfold their colors ; 
no mountains rise, no rivers roll, nor oceans swell. 

59 



60 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

To us beauty hath veiled her face, and grandeur and 
sublimity have passed away. Yes, Mary, all things 
have passed away. The moon has left the sky, and all 
the constellated stars have gone down forever. The 
bright dreams of our youth have fled, and promised 
joys come not. All around are blithe and gay, but 
from morn till eve, Mary, we move cautiously and 
pensively. Our truant feet often go astray, and we 
know not when danger is nigh. As the chained eaglet 
looks heavenward and stretches out her wing in fan- 
cied freedom, so we sometimes intercept the flight of 
time and live forgetful in light and joy and hope, only 
to return and weep in darkness more dark and lone- 
liness more lonely. 

But, Mary, our darkness, like the clouds, must have 
its sunny side. God takes blessings from us only 
when their absence is the greater blessing. Sorrow, 
sanctified, quickens into newness of life the better 
feelings of our nature. Albeit less beloved, as per- 
adventure less prized, we are still the gainer, since 
the good of loving is ever weighed largest to him who 
loveth most. Those whom we hold dear come to us 
now clothed in our own chastened ideal, of all fault 
bereft, and perforce we love them more — love God 
more, even as David foresaw that it would be with 
him when he prayed, " Turn away mine eyes from be- 
holding vanity ! " 

Imagination, too, that sublime radius of the soul, 
is every day taking to herself a broader sweep, pierc- 
ing even the sepulchre of the buried past and tread- 
ing fearless within the boundary of the unseen. In- 
deed, science or art or earth or sky have no treas- 



RADIUS OF THE SOUL 61 

ured worth, no hidden beauty, that fancy, in her 
fleetness, does not picture in colors brighter far than 
open eyes can see; and as flowers from the depths of 
the ocean come floating o'er the swelling tide, so beau- 
tiful images from the long-forgotten past gladden 
now our searching memories. 

Galileo, who saw more than all the world before 
him, and opened the eyes of all after him, from the 
top of his prison, with the instrument his own hands 
had wrought, watched the wheeling orbs above until 
his eyes grew opaque as the satellites he discovered. 
Then in his woe he cried : 

" Oh, ye gods, for power to look once more into the 
serene depths of the clear night-heaven ! " 

If we may judge from his frequent and happy al- 
lusions to its beauties, Milton would have given all 
other sights for the glorious morning; Saunders de- 
sired only once to look along the pages of a book ; and 
I have heard you say, Mary, that you would rather 
see the flowers again than all the world beside. But, 
oh, if I were to be blessed with one moment of sight, 
if for one brief second, even, these clouds could be 
folded back, I should pray to look again into the face 
of a cherished friend, forgetting all in the joy of once 
more beholding a pair of soul-lighted eyes, beaming 
with intelligence and love, whose spirit-glances imag- 
ination cannot picture, and things so holy unsancti- 
fied memory may not treasure. 

Alas ! only they who watch in heaven can pity the 
saddened feelings that steal upon us, when with 
ravished ears we listen to descriptions of paint- 
ings on the walls, rainbows upon the watery clouds, 



62 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

and all the shades and forms of life that come and 
go. Ah, no; and what a mercy that hope, white- 
handed, forever points our thoughts away to a world 
where light is that fades not ; where the painter, with 
his brush of divine art dipped in color's native 
well, sketches holy imagery, scenery of heaven, with 
flowers blooming by living fountains ; and among 
them, softly moving, the fair forms of the blest when 
day-spring's fragrant dews hang empearled upon 
their seraph locks ; where poets, seated upon blissful 
mounds, write while the inspirations of holy genius 
burn and blaze along their lines ; where, invited by the 
voice of Him who sits in majesty enthroned, we may 
explore truths into which philosophers here look and 
grow bewildered with their depths ; where, illumined 
by His light, we may watch His creating hand mould 
worlds and toss them into the fields of ether, pensile 
hung, while His love clothes the lilies of the field, and 
" tempers the winds to the shorn lamb." 

Life, after all, Mary, is very much what we make 
it. In other words, shut away from all that is ex- 
ternal, we are very nearly the creators of the world 
we live in. Let us see to it, then, that we be good 
creators. Since day and night are the same, we can 
as well people our minds with the beams of the one 
as the clouds of the other; as well call back images 
of joy and gladness as those of grief and care. The 
latter, however, may sometimes be our guests to sup 
and dine, but let them never be permitted to lodge 
with us. We came forth in childhood's morn to 
gather flowers; and because on our way we have 
dropped a few, we will not sit down and weep over 



RADIUS OF THE SOUL 63 

the lost, but rather amuse ourselves counting and 
admiring those we have left. 

Cora is an angel of patience, Mary, or I had not 
written you so long a letter. Her little hand must be 
weary, though she says No ; and when I complain of 
troubling her, she folds her white arms around my 
neck and whispers : "Afflicted friends are our ' min- 
istering spirits ' ; for us they languish, for us they 
die." 

Dear Mary, it is four by the clock, and I fancy 
myself again in the institution parlor, drumming a 
piano-lesson as if noise were its only object! Now 
opens the door. Kittie, Libbie, Josie, and Susie, all 
in one breath inquire : 

"Mr. Dean? Mr. Dean?" 

" No, he has not come yet." Away they run and 
presently return with some dozen more. Now they 
are not mistaken. His well-known tread in the hall 
they heard, and his voice guides them to his arms. 
Some are in his lap, others hang around his chair; 
all expect a kiss, a kind word; yes, and something 
more. Look ! what has he now for these, his pet chil- 
dren? Pineapples, bananas, figs, oranges, etc. These 
with a father's fondness he divides, answering mean- 
time their many questions of the people who grow 
and gather such delicious fruits, how preserved, 
where procured, etc. 

But where is Charlie, the pet of all the house? 
Forgive the little rogue ! he has gone, trudging up the 
long stairs with a heart full of complaint to Miss 
Wild that his apron pockets " aint bigger enough " ! 

Patting them on the head affectionately, Mr. Dean 



64 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

says : " Go away now, my children, to your play, 
while I read a little to these larger girls." Bless his 
great heart ! some choice book, we know, perhaps just 
from the press ; and as we sit encircled around, hour 
after hour goes unheeded by, until, warned by the 
shades of evening, the book is closed, and at the yard 
gate we bid him adieu. 

It is a long walk to Mr. Dean's mansion; but his 
happy thoughts, like angel company, make him for- 
get distance and lose all record of time. Ah, Love, 
thou art indeed a brighter light than the sun. holier 
than the stars, and thy beams around the heart are 
more sweet and more dewy than the rosiest morning. 

I often wonder who comes to read for you now on 
Sabbath evenings since Mr. Hamilton Murray has 
gone to make Oswego his home. We never forget 
those to whom we have been truly kind; so, doubtless, 
thoughts of those whom his frequent visits and pleas- 
ant readings made so happy, will come to him some- 
times even there. 

Yesterday two canaries were presented to me. One 
I am to bring to Miss Ann, and the other to you, 
Mary. Their warblings are equalled in sweetness by 
none but your own. Pardon me if I flatter; but I 
could not compliment their musical powers more, nor 
describe them to vou better. 



To 

Miss Mary Brush, 

Blind Institute, 

Xew York. 



CHAPTER XIV 

A COVERT WAY 

Rochester, N. Y., March, 1848. 

It is pleasant to be even the sport of a chance 
breeze while it continues to set one down by pleasant 
places. I am passing the winter amid the sunny 
homes of this one city in the world so like heaven that 
its doors stand always ajar! 

Miss Ferrier says beautifully in her " Marriage " : 
"As the ancients held sacred the oak riven by the 
lightning, so a delicate mind always regards one who 
has been afflicted as if touched by the hand of God 
Himself." The cold and unfeeling, whose souls har- 
bor only selfishness and haughty pride, never seek 
those whose proofs of the Lord's love are best counted 
in the stripes they have received, but, like priests and 
Levites, pass on the other side ; which, you see, leaves 
me always necessarily with the good, who alone find 
pleasure contributing to the happiness of one who 
can make no return for their favors. 

They tell me, though, dearest Laura, that gratitude, 
that holiest of heavenly emotions, is too much the 
theme of my letters ; and complain that I give words 
of thanks and praise to everyone who is kind, all 
unmindful that green-eyed prejudice is still in the 
world. But they who say thus should know that the 

65 



66 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

inoons of two very long years have come and waned 
since even a harsh word has fallen upon my ear. or 
a frowning face, a look of anger or hate, passed be- 
fore my eyes. "We are creatures of habit and form 
our ideas of the world very much from what we see 
of it. Wonder not. then, that I should call it only 
bright and beautiful. The last time I saw the green 
earth and its inhabitants, they wore yet the sunny 
hues of innocence and gladness with which unsus- 
pecting youth covers all things, and so they seem to 
me now. Indeed, were I to bear a report to heaven, 
I should call this a charming world, a kind, a loving, 
and a forgiving world. I should say men oftener 
love than hate, oftener do good than ill ; and oh ! 

'"Long, long be my heart with such memories filled. 
Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled; 
Ye may break, ye may ruin the vase,, if ye will, 
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still." 

A Alarch morning more soft and clear never graced 
an Italian sky. The ice-bands of the Genesee are 
broken, and its waters roll on again, tossing liquid 
gems to the sunbeams : and robins, first warblers 
among the leafless trees, are welcoming in the spring. 
It is Saturday, the holy Sabbath of the Jews, but 
the Christian's preparation-day. I have been with 
Lizzie and Carrie to their place of prayer, and the 
solemnities of the house of God are still on my 
thoughts. White-haired age and the young were 
there, inquiring. " What shall we do to be saved'" 
A stranger opened the exercises with the words, 
" Seek me early, and ye shall find me." Dr. Shaw 



A COVERT WAY 67 

followed, addressing himself mostly to the youth of 
his congregation, or " children of the covenant," as 
he called them. It is the church to which my William 
belonged, and it seemed sometimes that he had really 
come in and was sitting beside me, while memory's 
panorama of the beautiful bygone came brightening 
over my thoughts, and I was looking again into that 
sunlighted world, refreshing my heart with all its 
images of love and gladness. 

Oh, this night is too long! The tread of the 
watchman long, long since ceased, and yet no ap- 
proach of the dawn. Alas ! hope fails, my heart 
fails, all fails, save Him who hath promised, " I will 
guide thee with mine eye " ; and sometimes, too, even 
heaven seems far, far off, like those distant stars 
whose light has never yet travelled down to us, and I 
walk by faith blindly. Ah, why wish to prolong days 
that hardly bring more than misery f Is it the known 
that we love so well, or is it the unknown that we 
fear? 

How vividly the " Valedictory " you send me re- 
calls a like scene in the old seminary chapel such 
a little time ago; while the faces of those learned 
professors — Seager, Hoyt, Whitlocke, and Pinckney 
— with their lessons of instruction and their precious 
counsels, come smiling back to me until I can almost 
hear the farewell words of Professor Seager ringing 
again in the air, " First of all be Bible students ! " to 
which dear Mrs. Seager added, you remember, in her 
terse and happy way : " Ignorance of anything else 
may be palliated; but for lacking knowledge of the 
one Book in the world that gives grace and wisdom 



68 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

to our lives, and offers immortality beyond the grave, 
there is no excuse and no pardon." 

I envy you, dear Laura, the privilege of still abid- 
ing in the temple where we worshipped together at 
the shrine of knowledge, as I might also the talent 
that points you with such prophetic finger to a future 
whose close, like the setting of the sun, may be lost 
in the purple and the gold of its own splendors. 
Alas! mine is a covert way which I tread sad and 
alone; but so it bring me out to that purple dawn 
in the closing scene of the vision, with those mys- 
terious, shining squares, you remember, close folded 
in my arms, I shall count it " an highway " indeed, 
and most blessed of all ways. 

It is doubtless no sin to be poor, and yet it would 
seem scarcely otherwise, inasmuch as there is hardly 
a command that does not imply the possession of at 
least more than barely enough for one's self. More 
still, what is there of this world's good that money 
does not secure, save a heart beating always in har- 
mony with one's own, breathing melodies in thoughts 
as they occur, and feelings as they spring spontaneous 
from the soul! Such a friend, though, rarely comes 
to us more than once in a lifetime, and, like an angel 
visitor, seems then heaven-bound and sure to leave 
us early. 

Is it true that sweet Amelia is going to make her 
home far away, where the gates to the beautiful 
Orient " on golden hinges turn"! And her native 
land to lose her, and our hearts to mourn her forever! 
It was the kine, though, lowing for their young left 
chained behind them, who were chosen to bear the 



A COVERT WAY 69 

Ark of the Lord up out of Philistia. And so, full 
often the priests and diviners of fate call woman to 
pen up all the weak, crying things of her soul and 
leave them behind her, while she goes far over life's 
weary way, treading upon her own bleeding heart. 
Full often, too, she must needs even choke down the 
pain, and hide with smiles the tears that would reveal 
the sorrow shut up in her soul. 



To 

Miss Laura Draper, 

Canandaigua, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XV 

WHO TWICE BLESS 

Rochester, N. Y., April, 1848. 

By a strange contradiction of being, we are often 
most inclined, I believe, to what we really most 
dread. At least, having been twice as long absent 
from the institution as I found it well for me to tarry 
in it, I have come to think longingly of the slim white 
bed in the dormitory, and the three-legged stool at 
the table vacated by me. In other words, my music 
must not be any longer neglected, for although it may 
never serve me, it will at least help sometimes to be- 
guile the slow-turning hours ; and as a kind of tocsin 
calling me back to it, your letter here says : " The in- 
stitution will seem less desolate, I fancy, with those 
trunks nicely packed for the summer." 

My dear Mrs. Tuttle, your whole memory lies cir- 
cled around in my heart with so many deeds of love 
and kindness, that to make my thanks to you worthily 
I should have a language so woven from real thought 
and feeling as to leave no necessity for words. How, 
then, receive these delicately proposed attentions to 
my wardrobe, how fold this new kindness up in my 
heart, without some demur against your setting those 
white hands to such another love-labor for me ? How 
decline it, either, or how do better than to let you be 

70 



WHO TWICE BLESS 71 

just as lovely to me as you wish! Imagine, then, your 
cordial invitation for a visit to your home covered 
all over with thanks, while I await opportunity there 
to tell you how dear and good and beautiful you are. 

On Christmas eve dear Mrs. Snow sent me some 
lovely dress patterns, with the sweetest note in the 
world, and a long, rich scarf ; and early in the morn- 
ing Miss Helen Phelps came smiling into my room, 
like a thing of light, with an elegant shawl for me, 
and a nice set of Russia marten from my young gen- 
tlemen friends. On New Year's, too, Mr. Champion 
called, and with his " Happy New Year " left with 
Lizzie one of his richest presents for me, saying, 
" Tell her that it is from Santa Glaus, only a little 
slow coming ! " But the greatest surprise of all was 
my letter to Lizzie in the paper New Year's morn- 
ing, with such a beautiful preface. Why, if the editor 
really means what he says, I may yet almost hope to 
do something with my pen. He called, in the even- 
ing, and among other encouragements assured me 
that my letter to Lizzie is really one of the most 
gracefully written things in the world. 

What you have heard of my clergyman friend, 
though, means just nothing at all. I took the name 
of one who, you know, sleeps by yonder lake, and put 
on black for him ; and I shall neither change the one 
nor part with the other till the angels bring me robes 
of light, and new-name me, I trust, among those 
whom heaven has called its own. However, I hope to 
be ere long in a position to relieve my friends of 
that earnest sympathy which your letter so endear- 
ingly expresses. The lady whom I am visiting is 



72 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

one of my sincere friends, and yet she never wearies 
picturing brighter days for me. So trusting, may my 
shadow soon fall aslant your open door, and myself 
come straight to your loving arms. By the low win- 
dow there it will be sweet to watch the hours age and 
disappear again, while we ponder upon that strange 
foreshadowing of my lot, to the first four scenes of 
which Time has turned seer and translated them into 
such stern realities. 

Mrs. Snow read me your precious letter, and, if 
possible, the words were more dear falling from her 
lips. Oh, she is such a generous, noble-hearted 
woman ! I have stopped with her more than with all 

my friends in E , and yet she never seems to 

know that I have troubled her at all. Her home, like 
herself, is always sunny and cheerful, her carriage is 
the freest thing in the world, and her doors, I tell her, 
open and shut as though they turned in the very oil 
of hospitality. Her invitations, too, seem more com- 
mands for her own pleasure than favors conferred. 
In a word, like yourself, she knows how to be beauti- 
fully kind ; how to present roses without thorns, and 
give pleasure without pain — an art taught by the 
angels, who twice bless, blessing unseen. 



To 

Mrs. Mary B. Tuttle, 

Palmyra, N. Y, 



CHAPTER XVI 

NIGHT-DAYS 

Rochester, N. Y., April, 1848. 

It is arranged now that I leave for New York on 
the first May morning ; and, alas ! how many shadows 
flock to my heart at every thought of the future ! 

Of course you had good and wise reasons for re- 
signing your position as one of the board of managers 
at the institution; but, dear Mr. Dean, when I think 
of being barred again within those gloomy walls, my 
heart sinks at the idea of your coming no more to 
heighten with your cheering presence the few pensive 
joys possible to those destined to sit forever upon the 
stub of time, dreaming and blinking away the long 
night-days. 

My poor eyes, after which you so kindly inquire, 
have not yet wholly recovered from the effect of the 
coal fires, to say nothing of the blows they received 
there. You see, besides my own frequent collisions 
with the edges of doors and other stationary objects 
about the house and the grounds, it took me months 
to learn that those fearless stalkers, up and down the 
halls, could not see ; and our bumpings of heads were 
sometimes fearful. The trouble was, I went there 
too soon. I was neither strong of heart enough for 
so great a change, nor was my nervous system sufii- 

73 



74 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

ciently reestablished for the study and the amount of 
practice that I subjected myself to. However, what- 
ever is, must be for the best ; and, striving always to 
do the right, that one did a thing almost proves it best 
that one did do it. At all events, there is nothing 
left for me now but to put on as sunny a face as 
possible, and laugh when they speak of my returning 
to resume my labors as a novitiate. One does not 
grow to be a philosopher in a day. Sometimes, 
though, I seem to be letting go the past with its 
shades, hence on to find out higher and brighter paths, 
sweeter waters, and greener pastures. 

The last month has been like summer, and Lizzie 
and Carrie have made the most of it laying out and 
adorning the grounds around their new homes. Their 
places are adjoining, and between the two I have 
passed most of the time out of doors, which, with my 
visit home and long ride over the far-away hills, has 
done much toward restoring my former exuberance. 
Indeed, my cheerfulness has come to be quite a mar- 
vel ; but you see, Mr. Dean, I should have learned by 
this time to be at least as politic as the owl, who 
knows full well that his dolorous notes would soon 
drive every bird from the trees miles around him; 
and so, for the sake of their sweet companionship, he 
sits all the day long patiently choking down his 
melancholic griefs until night has put the world to 
sleep, and then — Well, yes, and then ! 

Alas ! if there were only a university for the blind, 
or only anything beyond the bare preliminaries of an 
education which the different States have provided ! 
Just think of it ! almost two thousand years since the 



NIGHT-DAYS 75 

precept was proclaimed, Do unto others as ye would 
that others should do unto you, and not a college yet 
on the globe for the class who have not only given to 
the world its oldest and grandest specimens of litera- 
ture, but being compelled, as they are, to live wholly 
mental lives, should be, along all the ages, the very 
mandarins of its wisdom. Every year scores are 
forced to quit the institutions of the different States, 
where their souls have been merely fired with the love 
of learning. Some go back to their country homes, 
there to do the churning, saw the wood, or knit the 
stockings, as the case may be. Others, less favored, 
as you know, eke out an existence by following 
some one or other of the paltry mechanical tricks 
called trades, which their fingers have been stupidly 
taught ; while the God-lighted souls in them drag 
away the years yearning for those lofty reaches of 
thought which made a Saunders, second only to New- 
ton; and a Milton, in grandeur and sublimity of the 
ideal second to none this side of heaven. Alas ! when 
will governments be wise? When will the world 
know to seek its own good, by being first just and 
generous to others! Ah, Mr. Dean, were the wealth 

of your friend Mr. A only yours, not a decade 

would pass before the turrets of a university for the 
blind would be towering so far heavenward that the 
angels, even, might mistake their beacon-lights for 
those of a still higher heaven, and come down to wor- 
ship at its immortal shrines. 

You have doubtless read of the one Persian college 
whose admittances are for life, no student ever gradu- 
ating thereat save with death. And such a school, 



76 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

dear Mr. Dean, can there never be builded in the world 
for the knowledge-loving, knowledge-craving blind, 
who sit forever with veiled eyes peering down into 
their own souls; sighing in vain for richer and 
prouder material wherewith to rear temples of 
thought, grand and beautiful enough to make the 
Homers, the Miltons, and the Ossians of heaven, even, 
sigh to come back and dwell therein? 



To 

Mr. Nicholas Dean, 

New York. 



CHAPTER XVII 



YOUNG LADIES 



Geneva, N. Y., May, 1848. 

Agitated with the fears and anxieties of a lonely 
journey ? I find myself illy prepared to interest hearts 
as light and joyous as yours. Still, inasmuch as your 
editress has so kindly asked of me a contribution to 
your forthcoming paper, I hasten to jot down for 
your perusal a few of the thoughts and fancies that, 
in my sudden exit from the seeing world, memory 
chanced to bring along with me. 

Peace at last spread her downy wings upon this our 
fair and happy land. Our foes said it was enough. 
The din of battle ceased, and ere the roar of its can- 
non had died away, like Miriam, after the passage of 
the Eed Sea, Madam Rowson was the first to weave 
into song the gladdened notes of freedom and the hal- 
lelujahs of victory! And as the heart of one bird is 
stirred by the song of another, enough joined in the 
charm of her chorus to keep the wild Muses from 
flying away. But as in all new countries, during the 
first years of our independence education was con- 
fined to a few ; and not until machinery began to do 
the work of hands did the daughters of America re- 
ceive their emancipation papers from the distaff and 
the loom. Then a change, indeed, came over the 

77 



78 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

spirit of their dreams; and now, ere a century has 
elapsed, to see what they have done to help on the 
great march of intellect, and to mark the pace they 
have kept with their rivals in other lands, one must 
visit the temples of our nation's freedom, pass along 
those marble aisles, and count there the contributions 
they have made to those vast cabinets of intellectual 
treasures. 

True, we find there no Mrs. Hemans, who brushed 
the tears from her saddened cheek, and sang to the 
ages songs so sweet that it will be long ere one comes 
to rival her in the glory of her strains ; nor a Letitia 
Landon, who struck her heart's lyre and filled the 
great ear of all time with the moaning murmur of her 
melodies. 

No ; and what is more, our cousins from across the 
waters tell us that while, as a nation, we continue our 
expensive habits of dress, our luxurious indulgences 
of pleasure and ease, with their attendant wastes of 
time, we may never hope to count in our constellation 
of sister stars a Madam Thrale, a Mrs. Opie, or a 
Lady Mary Somerville; a Caroline Lamb or a 
Hannah More. Still, in contrast to all these, with 
what just pride do we point to our gifted Mrs. Maria 
Brooks, to whom America first bequeathed her magic 
wand, and in whose gorgeous imagery, blending with 
the sweet graces of her style, one traces all the gold 
and purple of our dreamy skies, fringed with the 
autumn hues of our forests and flowers; as in the 
strange melodies of her impassioned verse we hear 
the quaint songs of our birds and the music of our 
waterfalls winding and cascading adown her fines. 



YOUNG LADIES 79 

Also Mrs. Gilman, Margaret Fuller, Miss Sedgwick, 
Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Sigourney, and, more than all, 
Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, whose poetic gems may be 
compared to bracelets of sweet opals upon the fair 
arms of Liberty, in whose ears Bryant has hung the 
jewelled stars, thousands helped to wreathe her neck 
around with dewy pearls, and Longfellow set the 
shining Pleiades in her golden crown. 

But while thus names, all to memory dear, and 
many that were not born to die, continue to crowd 
linked hands to our view, we have recalled enough at 
least to convince ourselves that the day is not far dis- 
tant when fair Columbia may come to boast of the 
wisdom and excellence of her daughters, with as much 
justice and pride as now she points to her sons for 
the might, the grandeur, and the glory of the world. 

My dear young ladies, you are here to be educated ; 
but, oh, how little of life's great discipline may be 
crowded into these few terms ! Knowledge is a tem- 
ple whose lofty structure is reared only by long years 
of study and watchful observation. Here you may 
scarcely more than lay the foundation, and let me en- 
treat you then to dig deep and sink its corner-stones 
broad and well. Do nothing superficially. 

" Life is real, life is earnest, 
And the grave is not its goal." 

Discipline is what you most need. The mind must be 
expanded ere it can be stored. Year after year man 
may toil, patiently hoarding up his gains, and then, 
by some mishap, lose them all, but still be rich and 
great in the strength labor has given his bones and 



80 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

sinews. Just so memory may prove treacherous to 
the mind in part, but not in all. You may gather rich 
thoughts and lose them, without losing the discipline 
of acquiring them. 

To a resolute will nothing is impossible, and never 
be afraid to aspire. You know not what rich tides 
of feeling may be even now purpling around your 
young hearts, or what starry thoughts may be rising 
there. Passing out of these halls, too, to participate 
in the varied strifes of life, upon whatever pathway 
to distinction you may choose to enter, or even upon 
the great race-ground for fame itself, you need not 
bear upon your escutcheon the leaden words : Impos- 
sible! Impossible! while all around you, abroad and 
at home, your brother competitors so boldly inscribe 
upon theirs that proudest and loftiest of all earth's 
mottoes, Excelsior! Excelsior! No, no. All that 
woman is, or ever has been, in any land on the face 
of the globe, is hence-on possible to the daughters of 
America, so only they have the courage to will, and 
the daring or the patience to achieve. Toil on, then ; 
the more difficult your tasks, the more persevering 
be your efforts. Knowledge is gained by littles, and 
the storehouse of the patient gleaner is ever found the 
fullest. Here a little and there a little, or everywhere 
something, is the true motto. 

But to swell the hours with study and chink the 
moments with thought, as they fly, is not all; and I 
should be as untrue to myself as unfaithful to you, 
were I to close this hurried communication without at 
least pointing you to Him who made Solomon greater 
than all before him, and wiser than all after him, not 



YOUNG LADIES 81 

so much because of His greater love for him, as in 
that Solomon's prayer of the night pleased the Lord, 
" Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart." 

The young king of Israel, though crowned and scep- 
tred, honored and beloved as never had king been 
before, would fain become wiser-hearted, having an 
understanding to discuss judgment; and as a legacy 
from his father, David, he knew that in the pursuit of 
knowledge, even as in the search for peace and par- 
don, nothing unlocks the chambers of the soul and 
bends heaven to its needs, like the breath of prayer. 

And so, young ladies, commending you, now and 
always, to Him who has said, "Ask of my Father 
whatsoever ye will, in my name, and it shall be given 
unto you," I turn to go from all here with regret. 
If the two weeks of my stay in Geneva have not at 
all folded back the clouds that envelop me, they have 
at least fringed them with light; and I bear away 
with me, close locked in my heart, memories of love 
and kindness far brighter than the beams on yonder 
lake, and far longer-lived than the smiles and joys of 
to-day. 

So, friends of the Chapin Seminary, teachers, 
scholars, and all, I bid you adieu, with tears circling 
around my heart; but they be, in part, tears of joy 
that we may meet again and drink together at 
thought's native wells, and gather flowers by those 
life-streams unfading as the light of heaven. 



To 

The Young Ladies, 

Chapin Seminary, 

Geneva, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

ALL OUR FEET TO CLIMBING 

Blind Institute, New York, May, 1848. 

When I left your cottage home, my dear father and 
mother, the sleety winds of early spring were blowing 
high, and the crocuses were hardly yet above the 
ground. At your dear threshold you kissed me good- 
by, and I felt your tears, mother, warm on my cheeks. 
Then, as if I might never come again, you all, one 
after another, folded me tenderly in your arms, father 
said, " God bless you, my child ! " and I rode away. 

Words are not feelings, so I can never make you 
know the strange sensations that nestled in my soul 
while I crossed the hills that windy day. Sometimes 
I fell into mysterious reveries, and fancied my jour- 
ney home, my stay with you, and my departure, all 
an unfinished dream, and I should soon awaken and 
find it so. I changed my position, and tried to open 
my eyes to see if the morning had not come. Then 
I heard distinctly the rumbling of the stage-wheels, 
the rattling of the harness, and the tread of the 
horses; the crack of the driver's whip, and the fre- 
quent passing of farmers' teams. No, I said, this 
is real ; I am not dreaming. Then I turned my face 
to the stage-window, and felt the biting wind as it 

82 



ALL OUR FEET TO CLIMBING 83 

whistled by, but all around and above I could see 
nothing but clouds of folding darkness. Then I sank 
back, and my spirit reeled beneath the awful weight 
of conscious blindness, which like a mountain seemed 
falling on me and hiding me from the world forever. 
Still I did not weep. I have no longer any tears to 
shed. My heart has known grief so burning that 
dews and moisture nevermore gather there. Like a 
seared forest, its blossoms are faded and its leaves 
are withered and fallen. 

En route from Rochester I made a visit of nearly 
two weeks in Palmyra ; and the night before my de- 
parture, some young friends came and sang under my 
window that sweetest of songs, 

"We will welcome thee back again" ; 

and another, one couplet of which seemed written ex- 
pressly for me: 

"Tis needful we watch thee by day, 
But the angels will keep thee by night." 

Professions, though, of love and friendship cost us 
nothing. Words are wind, and feelings are only the 
natural swellings of the heart. But acts are living 
things ; like facts, they are stubborn and immortal ; 
and if good deeds are footsteps in the ladder which 
reaches heaven, then dear Mrs. Tuttle cannot be far 
from the top, after all her beautiful kindness to me. 

I wrote Eliza Hamilton when I should pass through 
Geneva, thinking only to have the pleasure of speak- 
ing with her ; but lo ! she and a half dozen other of my 
old schoolmates came and fairly captured me from 



34 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

the cars; and, as you can imagine, I was too happy 
with them all to take much note of time. Indeed, the 
heart keeps no dial, and happiness always forgets to 
number the hours. If the scenery of a place ever 
gives tone to the minds and hearts of its inhabitants, 
then the beautiful Seneca must have lent her look of 
love to those who dwell by her shore, and rocked all 
selfishness to sleep in their hearts by the music of her 
waves. 

Eliza read to me while there, from one of the back 
numbers of LittelVs Living Age, a review of Sweden- 
borg, with lengthy extracts from his works, which I 
wish you would read, father, and write me how his 
seeming voyages to the " Other Side " impress you. 
The passage beginning, " It was given me to see," 
etc., reminded me of one of grandmother's books, al- 
ways on her table with her Bible and her glasses, 
" Dick's Philosophy of the Future State." I can see 
her now, coming out of her room, looking heavenly 
enough to have just been to spy out the land, and re- 
turned with her blessed hands full of the purple 
clusters ! 

Sometimes I seem faced about and living backward, 
so vividly everything and everybody reappear to me. 
Indeed, like the stars, the whole past seems to have 
been set in cloud only to make it appear the brighter. 
I had very little recollection of grandfather's looks, 
but I can see him now, in his arm-chair at Aldrich 
Hill, with his long white hair falling over his broad 
shoulders, and almost count the furrows in his brow, 
and feel the light of his dear eyes, dark and deep-set 
like yours, father; while my heart interprets the 



ALL OUR FEET TO CLIMBING 85 

smile on his face, half-sad, as though inly regretting 
that he had not the prophetic hand of Jacob where- 
with to bless. 

I send you, with this, a volume of " Macaulay's 
Miscellanies," for which I am indebted to a Eoches- 
ter friend, and for the reading of it also. You will 
be pleased with " The Life and Times of Milton and 
Cromwell," although to enjoy his reviews, generally, 
one must divest his mind of all prejudice, and read 
and think and feel only with the great author. The 
type is very fine, they say; but, aided by those new 
glasses, you will be able to read it. Please remember, 
though, dear father, that even younger and stronger 
eyes than yours are often injured by lamp-light, es- 
pecially when tasked as late as you are in the habit 
of using yours. 

Brother must not think he has completed all of 
" Parley's Tales " because he has read one little book 
through. They all together make quite a library, and 
possibly by another Christmas Santa Claus will find 
a way of crowding the whole set into his stocking, 
small as it is! 

I grieve to know, dear mother, that my letter from 
Rochester caused you to weep. Eyes like yours, wear- 
ing only smiles and looks of love, should never know 
tears. Little Libbie Perrin has always been as sweet 
and loving to me as a little June of roses ; and during 
my last visit to her mother I hardly made a move or 
took a step but her little hand was quick in mine; 
while, for all the letters I wrote, the patient lamb sat 
perched up beside me, telling me when the ink was 
out of my pen, and when a word was perchance stray- 



86 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

ing too far from the line. The first look at a letter 
penned under such difficulties was doubtless enough 
to have brought tears to eyes less pitying than yours, 
sweet mother. And now I am doing very little bet- 
ter. The teacher who sharpens pencils for the few 
here who write is away ; and shave one down as softly 
as I will, before hardly a line is written the point is 
gone, and often right in the midst of a word. Then 
nothing is left but to make a pin-prick as near the last 
letter as may be; and before the point is restored, it 
often happens that word, letter, and all are forgotten, 
and nothing left but to make a dash as a sort of 
" selah," and begin anew. 

Do not be discouraged, dear father, however slowly 
the mill goes around. Your " babies," as you used to 
call us when clambering for places in your arms or 
on your lap, will all be able to help you some time, 
notwithstanding we give so little promise of it now. 
Little promise, surely! What one hopes, though, 
more makes one than what one is, and despite the 
sunset that leaves me no more the light or the day, 
I have always the sweet prophecy shut up in my heart 
of yet doing just ever so little to brighten the way of 
-those whose lives must be forever sombred by the 
shadow of mine. Indeed, the lost is never quite all 
lost. Aldrich Hill, even, is still standing; and was 
perhaps taken away from us only for a little time, 
just long enough to set all our feet to climbing. 



To 

Father and Mother, 

"Stone Cottage," 

Mumford, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XIX 



MANY BATTLES 



Blind Institute, New York, June, 1848. 

There are no words for the loneliness that some- 
times hangs down around about the world, leaving to 
the brightest day, even, scarcely more than the shades 
of misery ! Again in New York, the city of lights and 
fountains; again, alas! in this gloomy institution! 
Happiness, though, does not so much depend upon 
circumstances as we allow. From our own hearts the 
fountain must well, or no number of tributaries can 
long keep alive its joyous gushings and its laughing 
streams. 

The promenade-grounds in the rear of the institu- 
tion, covering several acres, were a present to it from 
a rich " thee " and " thou " Friend ; when straightway 
Mr. Nicholas Dean volunteered to plant them over 
with trees, and behold them now tall and majestic — 
the ailantus from China, the catalpa from Japan, the 
silver-leaved poplar and abele from the South, the 
European linden and Norway fir, besides the maple, 
elm, and others from our own forests. The front 
yard, too, laid out with beautifully gravelled walks 
and circles set around with flowers, was largely the 
work of his love; and now he never wearies coming 
to tell us of their beauties, their virtues, and their 

87 



88 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

native homes — Nicholas Dean! whom no title could 
honor, and for whose great good heart the world has 
no name; no name either for his excellence in every 
way, so great he is in himself; always dignified, but 
never austere. The humblest child in the street might 
feel free to accost him, while the greatest man in the 
world could not presume upon his familiarity. But 
his holiest deeds are wrought where there are none 
but the angels to see. His heaven-born benevolence 
loves most to bless the poor little hearts which the 
great world passes by unheeded. TVhen office hours 
are over and business done, watch him day after day 
and year after year wending his way to this Xew 
York Institute for the Blind, where groups of sight- 
less ones fly to greet him as their eyes would seek the 
sun! His folding arms and sympathizing breast 
make an altar at which each heart there may pour out 
its griefs, whisper each want and hope and fear; 
while all the day they speak his name in their sports 
and pursuits, and at night breathe it in their prayers, 
as the angels must talk of the beautiful and the good 
in heaven. 

The Croton is at last jetting its clear waters in 
every part of the building, and the little boys count 
more birds in the trees here this summer than ever 
before ; and, strange, to say, their quick ears distin- 
guish their warbling friends by the different keys 
they sing in. But the old gardener is no more. When 
the flowers had faded and the autumn winds had 
strewn the ground with the dead honors of the trees, 
the old man laid him down to die. Xo more he comes 
to teach our truant feet where not to tread, and our 



MANY BATTLES 89 

hands to find the fairest blossoms. He was a son of 
Erin, " green isle of the sea," and next to his God 
he loved his country. Regarding his own history, 
though, he was ever studiously silent, only once al- 
luding to his having been a long-time servant to 
Aaron Burr. French John, the cook, says : " Me burn 
much papier for ze old man ven he die — make une 
grande blaze!" Books were his only companions. 
His well-worn Bible still lies in his window, with his 
glasses beside it, all unread and uncared for now. 

The vocalist, George F. Root, has a class among 
the pupils of over one hundred, and comes to sing 
with them two hours every morning. Professor 
Reiff , though, who has many years had entire control 
of the musical department, passes half of each day 
here still. If the consciousness of having contributed 
to the welfare of others conduces to happiness, then 
Professor Reiff should be one of the happiest men 
in the world, if only for having given employment to 
so many of the blind, and set their hearts to vibrating 
forever with the melodies of song. If you could hear 
him in one of his best moods for playing, you would 
think, as I sometimes do, he will have little cause for 
complaint if up among the angels they do not present 
him a new harp, but let him keep his old one. 

music! all of Eden that escaped the fall! Lost 
in woe, the world went down, but music, dwelling so 
near heaven, lingers still, a solace for the wounds it 
cannot heal, a balm for the ills it may not cure. 

The preceptress has just returned from a tour 
South, and brought back with her, as you can imagine, 
very much to interest those whose little world lies 



90 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

almost wholly within these walls. I do not envy, 
though, so much her drives by Charleston's beautiful 
bay and Mrs. Polk's charming levees, as for the 
pleasure of looking on and listening to those grand 
old Romans in the Senate Chamber — Clay, Calhoun, 
Crittenden, and Webster. 

Last week General Scott and his aides paid us a 
visit. The band received him with " Hail to the 
Chief ! " When passing them, the General took off 
his hat and very graciously bowed, which, to his 
amazement, they unanimously returned. The mem- 
bers of the band are all blind, and well he might won- 
der how knew they when to return his bow, save that 
their spirits were conscious of the deference a greater 
spirit was paying them. John Wood, the good Qua- 
ker director, explained it this way : " Let me tell thee, 
General, the soul has eyes independent of the body." 

When all were assembled in the chapel, Mr. Cham- 
berlain addressed the great hero, following him 
through all the battles he had fought so eloquently 
that it seemed General Scott could scarcely have dis- 
tinguished himself from a Ca?sar, a Napoleon, or a 
Washington, even. Then turning to his sightless 
charge, his petition in their behalf was so beautiful 
that I must quote it for you here : 

" Some of these, General, when you shall have 
filled up the measure of your fame, and to you the 
praise and censure of man be alike indifferent, will 
survive; and when they shall recount your achieve- 
ments, and tell to coming generations of Chippewa 
and Cerro Gordo, and of Contreras, and the many 
other fields upon which you have covered the flag of 



MANY BATTLES 91 

our country with imperishable glory, I would have 
them say that once at least it was their fortune to 
listen to the tones of that voice whose word of com- 
mand was ever to the brave the talisman of assured 
victory." 

Then the veteran of many battles arose ; and after 
acknowledging Mr. Chamberlain's very eloquent ad- 
dress in the most courteous manner possible, with 
something in his words strongly suggestive of tears, 
he turned to speak to us. Alluding to our privation, 
he said: 

" Although your enjoyments are perhaps more 
pensive than those who see, still I know, by the light 
on your faces, that they are not less elevated and 
refined." Farther on, he said again: " While, in the 
providence of God, for the accomplishment of His 
good and wise purposes, you are called to make the 
journey of life debarred from the light and most of the 
pursuits and pleasures of this world, still you must 
not forget that the most blessed in heaven are those 
who have come up through great tribulation " ; and 
closed by pointing us to the Beautiful Beyond so 
earnestly and lovingly, that I fancied him looking 
more like a big angel standing up there than a vic- 
torious commander so late from the field of battle. 

When the General resumed his seat, Fannie was 
presented to him and recited a poem which she had 
prepared for his reception. In it she referred to the 
soldiers revelling in the halls of Montezuma. The 
General, in his complimentary remarks at the close, 
replied : " We did not revel in the halls of Monte- 
zuma, but subsisted there upon one meal a day; and 



92 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

when the battle ended, went down upon our knees, 
as all Christians and good soldiers should do, and 
returned thanks and sought the blessing of God." 

It was irrelevant, but the rebuke an English Quaker 
once chalked upon a church-door while the people 
within were shouting praises to the Supreme over a 
great victory, came quick to my thoughts : 

" God takes no thanks for murder." 

At her request the General let Fannie take his 
sword. Kaising it high, she exclaimed, " You are my 
prisoner ! " The General laughed, and very chival- 
rously replied : " I always surrender to the ladies at 
discretion." He then joked her, something about tak- 
ing hearts captive, when the sightless, soul-lighted 
Fannie quickly turned all into laughter with her witty 
retort, " I have never yet seen a gentleman who quite 
suited my fancy ! " 

There is to some people a charm of presence which 
makes it always delightful to look at them; and I 
could not stay my veiled eyes from turning wistfully 
toward the General while picturing him to the New 
World what Saul was to the Old : " Head and shoul- 
ders above all other men." 

It was said of Napoleon that his enemies fell back 
from before him almost by the force of his will ; and 
so may it be ever with the good and brave General 
Winfield Scott, while his friends are drawn and 
chained around him even as Jupiter draws and holds 
his moons. 



To 

Mr. S. J. Raymond, 

Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XX 



CLAIMS TO GENIUS 



Blind Institute, New York, July, 1848. 
One finds so little within the walls of this solemn 
tenebrarum to awaken and call forth those lively emo- 
tions which make the sonl of epistolary writing, that 
I really approach the fulfilment of my promise to 
write yon with diffidence. Indeed, yon must not ex- 
pect me to invest my pages with the same coloring 
and vivacity as when mingling more with the world. 
Retirement is favorable to sentiment, but pent-up feel- 
ings die, and unexpressed and unshared thoughts do 
wither. We are so constituted that suggestive society 
of some kind is needful, as well for our mental cul- 
ture as for our health and happiness. Books are but 
the symbols of thought and feeling, and as the sub- 
stance is preferred to the shadow, so, in all that 
appertains to our social nature, originals are better 
than copies. One cannot have a mentor, though, al- 
ways at one's side, and the most that can be gathered 
by conversation or travel, even, covers very little 
space in the learned world — to the ambitious mind 
hardly more than the boundary that girts the infant's 
cradle. The future is unknown. We have not an eye 
like the Infinite, that we may pierce its dark veil and 
read its unwritten lore. To the past, then, we must 

93 



94 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

go for knowledge, and books are its only chroniclers, 
the only caskets in which its priceless pearls are set. 

But to me, alas ! the temples of knowledge are alike 
all barred; its every fountain is dry, or turned to 
rock, and I have no power to bring again the gushing 
waters. Ah, no; I may no more drink from the 
streams of Pieria or sip the dews of Castalia. Mine 
is the brow of night whose stars are set ; flowers are 
at my feet, and dews like diamonds are glittering all 
around ; but the light is gone, and, like all things else, 
they are to me as if they had never been. 

Grief has long had a place in my heart, but to-day 
something like the shadow of despair is nestling there, 
covering all my thoughts with loneliness more than 
words can speak. How real sorrow doth deceive the 
world : weeps the long night away, and at morn puts 
on a sunny brow to meet those around her. But if we 
would please others, we must ourselves at least seem 
to be pleased; and it is indeed well when it may be 
said of us, as Goldsmith said of the French, " They 
grow to be what they seem." 

Poor Maggie! When a child, scarlet fever dark- 
ened her bright eyes and silenced her hearing forever, 
leaving her only speech, and scarcely more than a 
bewildered recollection of the names of things. Her 
friends placed her here hoping that, through the sense 
of touch, some new avenue might be opened to her 
mind. But, alas! the leaden hand of disease has 
pressed too heavily upon that dearest angel of the 
soul, memory, and whatever her mind takes up it im- 
mediately lets go again. Nothing is retained save 
the little gathered before her misfortune, and her 



CLAIMS TO GENIUS 95 

associations do not seem to have been the most de- 
sirable. She requires constant care, and in the ab- 
sence of the matron to-day I engaged to entertain her. 
She is fond of flowers, but she calls them trees and 
trees roses. I have passed hours with her going to 
and from one to the other, making her understand 
the difference perfectly, and call them over and over 
by their right names, " big tree," " little tree," " pretty 
roses," and so on, as we would come to them, but all 
to no purpose; and she stands here now crowding 
some wilted things into my hair, ever and anon ex- 
tending her arms and exclaiming, "So pretty trees ! " 
Now she strikes me on the shoulder, as much as to 
say, Was ever anything arranged or decked off like 
that ? Pollock says : 

" One man there was 
Who never had a dozen thoughts, 
But told them o'er from morn till night;" 

and so poor Maggie makes the most of hers by talk- 
ing them o'er and o'er! Her favorite way, though, 
of establishing a medium between herself and her 
friends, or victims, is by pressing one hand over their 
lips while they talk, and the other on the top of the 
head or back of the neck. If you refuse her this, to 
say the least, rather uncomfortable indulgence, she 
is greatly incensed, and her scolding is anything but 
euphonious. Her mode of being introduced, too, is 
quite novel. She takes your head between her two 
hands and commences repeating, in no very musical 
tones, all the names she can possibly remember, paus- 
ing between each for a Yes or a No, which you are 



96 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

expected to signify by a nod or a shake of your head ; 
and when at last she chances upon the right one, or 
for the sake of release yon persuade yourself that " a 
rose by any name " is just as sweet, and nod Yes, her 
delight is excessive, and you are rewarded by a storm 
of kisses ! Like many of the blind, too, she has the 
mysterious consciousness of a human presence, and 
there is no escaping her. You may keep so still as to 
almost stop breathing, and yet, as if by some compen- 
satory instinct, she will find you out, and almost 
sooner than she has touched you, distinguish you per- 
fectly ; and woe to the culprit who has tried to avoid 
her! . . . 

The sun is at last behind the hills, and I am in the 
park again, where I commenced my letter to you so 
early this morning. A feather's weight is sometimes 
just so much more than the spirit can bear, and this 
long sultry day with Maggie has wearied every 
thought and sickened every feeling, until my soul 
cries, How long! How long? One can play philan- 
thropist to the lowly, minister to their wants, and 
share their little thoughts, trying if possible to lift 
them higher ; but to be companioned with them, to be 
herded one of them, brings one at last to the paradox 
of having even the nothing that one had, taken away. 
My whole nature thirsts for a higher and a more im- 
proving intercourse, and longs to feast again upon the 
beauties of kindling and inspiring thought. 

We are progressive beings, and our every act, 
every thought or emotion should be a step in our pro- 
gressive life. As the least blow upon this little earth 
in its acting and reacting force is felt through the 



CLAIMS TO GENIUS 97 

illimitable fields of space, and that eternally, so man's 
most simple word or act in its effects will remain un- 
measured when matter's last atom shall have wan- 
dered back to that chaos whence it came forth. 

You say, my friend, that you make no claims to 
genius; but having an entire set of strong natural 
powers, developed by early culture, disciplined by 
self -application, and inspired by the love of truth, I 
see no reason why you should not begin where genius 
leaves off, ascend the intellectual throne of Bacon, or 
handle the more weighty reasonings of Locke; cope 
with Newton in his measurement of the spheres, or vie 
with Laplace, who in the lofty thought-rhythms of his 
own calculations could feel all the tremblings of the 
waning moon ; or seize the finger of philosophy, rend 
asunder the air, and with Plato's ravished ears " list 
the music of the chanting spheres." The gates that 
lead up to the great thought-towers of the world stand 
always ajar, and he who wills need not fail to scale 
its dizziest height, whence reaching far, a Herschel 
turned back the triple veil of the sun, and pulsed to 
his core the orb of day; while a Franklin, with the 
key of science in his hand, grasped the lightning's 
fiery wing and laid it harmless at his feet. 



To 

Mr. Mumford, 

Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XXI 



IN LONE ASTONISHMENT 



Blind Institute, New York, July, 1848. 

Unlike what hope once so loudly promised, I have 
no sight-seeings in Europe to picture you, no storms 
of ocean, nor clustered beauties of Naples and its 
rival bay, Rio Janeiro, to describe ; no ruins to paint, 
save perchance those of a broken heart, over which 
the voice of buried love ever moans like the sighings 
of decay amid fallen temples and mouldering castles. 

We have our preferences, as well for things and 
places as for persons; and of all the trees on these 
grounds, I love best this branching mulberry. I seek 
its shade when the sun is bright, and often when the 
night-dews are heavy on its leaves it covers still my 
brow, until long after the moon has waned and many 
stars have set. Oh, never breathe to human ear thy 
sorrow, but soothe thy grief in humble prayer; and 
when thy full heart goes up to heaven, let none but 
God and spirits hear. 

The hand loses its cunning without the eye to guide, 
and mine has become a perfect truant, placing the 
words now on one side of the line and now on the 
other. To remedy this in part, I have a card to place 
under the paper, covered with little slanted ridges 

98 



IN LONE ASTONISHMENT 99 

much like the half of a shingled roof inverted or 
turned around, which accounts for the strange-look- 
ing sheets I send you. Not long since, Dr. Tyng said 
in a sermon: " It is a principle of our nature to prize 
that highest we have the most trouble to get." No 
disadvantage, then, to my letter, dear Mrs. Snow, if 
you are puzzled a little to decipher its erratic words. 

Two weeks ago our school closed, and a party of 
some fifty went on board the Santa Claus for Al- 
bany, thence by the cars to their respective places. 
Others on the same day left for their homes in and 
around New York, until very, very few were left. 
Night came, and the halls and corridors, so accus- 
tomed to echo with merry laugh and tread, and 
sounds of music from the large organ down to the 
trumpet whistle, were all silent, and departure seemed 
whispered everywhere. Little Henry, who ran back 
to the sick-room once more to say good-by to poor 
Little Jakey, was unfortunately left. When he re- 
turned to the lower hall, behold ! the omnibuses were 
far away, and nothing could call them back or stay 
their progress. We tried to comfort him, but all his 
full heart could say was, " I want to go home ! I want 
to go home ! " 

The moon was on the hills, the stars came out, and 
the shades of night had fallen beautifully on all the 
weary world. We were sleeping, forgetful and hap- 
py, when suddenly the spacious dormitory, the chapel, 
and all the empty rooms were filled with sweet sounds 
which seemed pouring in at the windows and sifting 
down from among the trees. " What is it!" and 
"Where is it?" everyone exclaimed, starting up, 



100 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

almost wondering if the spirits of the departed had 
not come back to serenade those whom they had left. 
" The Bird Waltz," says one, as its chirpings were 
echoing everywhere. It was none other than the 
Christy Minstrels themselves, gathered among the 
firs in the front yard to give our loneliness a serenade. 
They played long and beautifully. " Lovely May," 
and other of their Ethiopian melodies, were never 
half so sweet, for which we could make them no 
acknowledgments. We had no bouquets to toss them, 
no lamps to light, and could only enjoy their music in 
silence; but when our quick ears followed their de- 
parting footsteps, our love and gratitude would fain 
have turned their harps to gold, such as minstrels 
wake beyond the skies. 

In the morning, as each seemed to know better the 
feelings of the other, we were more silent, and our 
plain breakfast had little relish. One after another 
left the dining-room, until, when the moment came for 
the bell, there were none to dismiss. I took my port- 
folio and came to this favorite tree. Presently the 
girls began to pass, walking, as usual, two and two, 
with their arms encircling each other's waist, both 
for the mutual protection it affords and the better 
companionship. 

Said one to her mate : " During vacation I will teach 
you six songs, with the symphonies and accompani- 
ments, if you will teach me those ' Hertz Exercises ' 
you know, and some pieces of Mozart and Haydn." 

"Agreed ! " was the reply. " I will tell you one 
of them now, and then we will go up and practice 
it." 



IN LONE ASTONISHMENT 101 

Said another: " When I finish my spread, I am 
going to knit a purse and bag to send to my aunt." 

Another: "I shall knit nothing but star and oak- 
leaf tidies this vacation, and one coat for a present 
to my little nephew Georgie." 

So they went on, innocent creatures, crossing again 
and again the angling walks, some counting the posi- 
tions and bars of music, some planning pastimes, and 
others wondering who of their mates had reached 
home. 

" Come, sit you down here, girls," I said, " and I 
will tell you a story, if you like." 

" Oh, good ! good ! " exclaimed everyone, and in a 
moment they were all planted around me upon the 
greensward, in the best listening mood possible. I 
told them Miss Sherwood's tale of "Aunt Mercy," 
after which we arranged to meet every morning, and 
I was to repeat, as well as memory could bring it back, 
a chapter of Warren's " Now and Then," which Mr. 
Hastings read to me last winter. Then each one in 
her turn promised to do the same from some volume 
she had heard. Little Jennie begged to be excused; 
said she never could keep awake the reading-hour, 
and had forgotten all the stories she had ever heard. 
Katie complained that it always took all her time to 
keep Nellie still, so she had heard none of the read- 
ing matter either. Unless she could think of some- 
thing better, Mary proposed treating us to some of 
Wilson's " Tales of the Border." Marjie spoke of 
some chapters from the " Diary of a Physician " ; 
" but," said she, " they all end so sadly." 

The morning wore away, and the two months' 



102 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

vacation in this Blind Institute began to look like a 
little lifetime, and all the days " dark and dreary." 
Toward evening, though, to my delight and aston- 
ishment, Miss Swetland returned. 

" Get your bonnet and shawl, quick," she said. " I 
could not go to Boston and leave you here so lonely, 
and I have come to take you over to Brooklyn." 

So the last two weeks I have passed at the de- 
lightful home of Mr. and Mrs. Emery and Mr. Augus- 
tus Graham, a very interesting old gentleman, if, 
indeed, it is at all proper to call a man old merely 
because the frosts of many winters have blanched his 
locks and deepened the furrows on his brow, while he 
still retains the mental freshness of youth and all the 
acting excellence of half his years. Mr. Graham is 
a native of Edinburgh, educated in London. Some 
fifty years since, he came to New York, where by his 
industry he has amassed a fortune which now in his 
declining years he is distributing with a hand as lib- 
eral as the heart of benevolence and philanthropy 
could ask. On our nation's last birthday he presented 
to the Brooklyn Institute and Hospital the pretty sum 
of fifty thousand dollars. Oh, who would not wish 
the power of dispensing good so freely! In a word, 
who would not like to be rich? Kiches stacked up in 
institutions, though, was not the Emmanuel's way of 
dispensing. He said to one, " Sell all that thou hast, 
and distribute unto the poor." 

Mr. Graham's apartments are cabinets of choice 
books, paintings, minerals, etc. One day, speaking of 
Paris, he placed in my hand a little relic of the Bas- 
tile, which he procured as follows : Passing over the 



IN LONE ASTONISHMENT 103 

grounds and finding nothing worth preserving, the 
guide took him around by the outer wall, where he 
espied far up in a niche a figure bereft of every limb 
that seemed breakable, save one finger pointing in 
lone astonishment to the shades of misery which must 
forever haunt the grounds of the Bastile. Being a 
pretty good Benjaminite, Mr. Graham threw a stone 
and felled the finger to the ground. " Come," said 
the guide, " we must be going from this place, or 
those guards will be after us." So Mr. Graham pock- 
eted quickly his well-earned relic and walked away. 
The finger has on it the indenture of the nail and the 
little creases of the first and second joints as perfect 
as though chiselled but now. 



To 

Mrs. J. Snow, 

Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTEE XXII 



THESE FEW WORDS 



Long Island Water-Ctjre, Oyster Bay, August, 1848. 

When the entire force of officers and pupils had 
left the institution, and an army of renovators had 
taken possession, the few of us who were left sought 
the walks and benches under the trees, until one and 
another of the piano nooks of the building were fin- 
ished. Seeking to atone somewhat for my long ab- 
sence, peradventure the hours there were a little over- 
crowded with practice, while the echo of it down those 
empty halls was enough to have invited something 
more than the shades of melancholia. At all events, 
so the days were drummed and dreamed away until 
reflection grew weary, and imagination, tired of bunt- 
ing her head up against the blackened walls of the 
future, turned " bad spy " and folded down her wings. 
Then, lo ! a break in the clouds in the shape of a 
little windfall from a few editors who had copied that 
last letter of mine ; when straightway plans for mak- 
ing a Water- Cure trial for thinning the mists in these 
eyes began to wrangle in my thoughts. 

The angels always have some people by the hand, 
and Nicholas Dean, of New York, is one of them. 
Thinking to cheer a little the lorn ones left within 
those gloomy walls, the evening brought his welcome 
tread along the gravelled walks and ere three times 
more the sun had risen and set he had sought me out 

104 



THESE FEW WORDS 105 

this Bethesda among the breezes where Nature has 
clustered so many of her beauties, and Art done so 
little to mar them. And, ah, what a world of delight- 
ful people, too, are congregated here! — among them 
your friends Captain and Mrs. Knight, who made the 
evening of my arrival memorable by an introduction 
to one whom I seem always to have met before, and 
wonder if I have not here in real life crossed paths 
with the shade who stood apart, you remember, with 
downcast eyes, in the closing scene of the vision. 

In my haste to reach the boat, though, lest the insti- 
tution carriage might be wanted, or something occur 
to detain me there a day longer, I failed to bring a 
writing-card, and every hand here is busy paddling in 
water — as are mine most of the time ; and whether by 
it or not the day brightens to my eyes, each one as it 
flies is leaving my heart a little world lighter. 

Dear Mrs. Emery, the tardiness of my reply to your 
sweet note and generous gift calls for an apology; 
and now I must beg you to excuse these few words 
also, straying, doubtless, like myself, now on one side 
of the line and now on the other. But those angel 
eyes of yours, ever looking after what is wander- 
ing, will be able to trace them. If not, I shall only 
fare the better by your good heart being left to sup- 
ply all that is intended. The six volumes came when 
Mr. Townsend chanced to be at the institution. Look- 
ing them over and piling them up again, he said: 
" Your friend sends you here a block of divinity itself, 
chiselled, in my opinion, from the very ' Rock of 
Ages,' and that, too, by a most masterly hand. I 
knew the eminent writer, was with him when he died, 



106 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

and helped bear him to the tomb ; and if there is any- 
thing in the world more beautiful than his discourses, 
it is the record of any one day of the life he lived.' ' 

Desiring to be remembered is perhaps selfish, but 
it is sad to feel that one is forgotten. The heart does 
not willingly part with those whose smiles have 
warmed and blessed it, and especially mine, which the 
fates had robbed poor but for the few loved ones 
they have left; and could I compare them to jewels, 
thou wert among them the pearl, white like the lily, 
and precious as love itself; or, if Music stand my 
simile, then thou art a little far-off band, the sweeter 
because one has to listen to hear it; voiced like the 
murmur of a waterfall, and holy like a mute prayer. 
So thou comest to me, and so I carry thee along in 
my heart. 

Please praise Mr. Emery for me ; call him all beau- 
tiful names, and tell him that the angels love him, I 
know, or they had never placed in his that dear white 
hand of thine, that might be chiselled for a Hope, 
painted for a Smile, and given only to bless. 

This is the week you are to leave for gay Saratoga ; 
and wishing you all the joys that bubble around and 
from the " Mohegan Wells " while there, and a safe 
and happy return, I beg for myself the pleasure of 
counting you, dearest, with all your sweet ways and 
heavenly twinklings, a fixed star in my little galaxy 
of friends. 



To 

Mrs. James Emery, 

Brooklyn, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



BY WHAT STKAWS 



Oyster Bay, L. I., August, 1848. 
Having lent your sanction to my making a Water- 
Cure trial for dissolving these clouds from my eyes, 
it was kind of you, surely, Mr. Dean, to look me out 
this breeziest place for it in the world ; and you have 

doubtless learned from Mrs. B how delightful 

your friend, Chancellor McCoon, made the sail for 
me up the Sound. The chief part of Union College is 
here; that is, the old president, for his rheumatism, 
Mrs. Nott, the three-wheeled carriage and pony, and 
the colored Moses, without whom, it seems, the good 
Doctor could neither walk, sleep, eat, nor preach, 
even, as Moses has to go into the pulpit with him, 
open the books, find the places, then crouch down and 
smooth away the pain from the swollen limbs while 
the venerable divine pours forth the Word. Mrs. 
Nott had been over to the city the day that I came up, 
and by the good Chancellor's favor I had the honor of 
a presentation to her soon after you left ; and waiting 
my arrival at the landing, as was arranged, it was 

doubtless no little surprise to Dr. S , finding me 

escorted by one of the most aristocratic of his sum- 
mer neighbors, and tete-a-tete with the most honored 
of his guests. Ah, by what straws mortals are 

107 



108 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

swayed ! It was that little incident alone, I am sure, 
that at table seated me next himself and opposite the 
revered president and Mrs. Nott, with a lovely Miss 
Marsh at my left, who was also met by him at the 
landing. 

The Doctor makes cheerfulness a duty, and exercise 
a very important part of his treatment. Each is 
tasked according to his ability. One subject of con- 
versation, it seems, never wears out : Diet ! diet ! Be- 
sides not faring over- sumptuously, the treatment be- 
gets appetite, and one meal is no sooner over than 
little groups on the piazzas and under the trees 
around are talking about what they will probably 
have to eat the next time. Some have their food 
weighed — eight ounces of coarse bread, or its equiva- 
lent, being all that is allowed them; pursuant to 
which, the Doctor is at present giving his patients 
and guests a course of lectures upon Shroat's theory 
of the Hunger Cure, whose establishment in Germany 
is a little way up the mountain, above that of Priess- 
nitz. He says he actually saw and conversed with a 
man there who had not taken food for seven days ; nor 
water, save what his body drank in from the surface, 
he being several hours every day rolled in damp 
sheets. 

Many thanks for the suggestion that if hydropathy, 
allopathy, and homoeopathy fail, there is still left 
" Chroma Thermal treatment." I do not know what 
that is, but fancy I should prefer Shroat's fasting 
plan as my dernier ressort. Your caution, however, 
to examine every day my fingers and toes shall not be 
disregarded, and the moment they show the least sign 



BY WHAT STRAWS 109 

of being connected by those thin membranous sub- 
stances known to naturalists as webs, I shall most as- 
suredly ask the Doctor for his bill and hasten away ; 
for I have no idea of joining any of the finny tribes, 
whatever else may become of me ! I have entered into 
the full spirit of Water-Cure, though, with its every 
variety of bath ; and whether my eyes are benefited or 
not, I have already become so invigorated by it that 
there is scarcely a limit to the walks I can take. 



To 

Mr. Nicholas Dean, 

New York. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

TO EVERY THOUGHT 

Long Island Water-Cure, Oyster Bay, September, 1848. 
Let me thank you many times, Mr. Dean, for your 
refreshing note of . yesterday. It hardly seems pos- 
sible that it came from an atmosphere of 92° Fahren- 
heit, If Hamlet had been with you, he might have 
realized personally his prayer: 

"O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, 
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!" 

Pity that all those ancestral " banks and braes " of 
yours upon the Hudson cannot entice you to close 
those great books, and seek their quiet and their 
shade ! Or have you become so oblivious to self as to 
find all the shady slopes and running waters in the 
sweet consciousness of having not only sought out 
breezy places for your own dear ones, but for others 
as well! 

To be present at the opening of the college term, 
Doctor and Mrs. Nott leave for Schenectady to-mor- 
row, and also a lovely family of Hardys from Vir- 
ginia depart, all of whom will be very much missed. 
When the Doctor first came, he was moved only in his 
arm-chair, which has a wheel on each side, and so 
constructed that he rolls it himself. This morning, 

no 



TO EVERY THOUGHT 111 

though, he walked a little way on the piazza alone, 
and how pleased he was ! 

Mrs. Hardy is a little larger than I am, and 
in every way my contrast — a dark brunette, jet-black 
eyes, and raven tresses that nearly touch the ground. 
Some say she is a descendant of Pocahontas, or 
Metoka, as her father called her. But, however, she 
is a very queen, generous, impulsive, cordiality itself ; 
and how I love her warm Southern heart only the 
angels can know. Indeed, we have climbed these 
hills, crossed the valleys and traversed winding foot- 
paths, waded the brooks and plunged and bathed to- 
gether, until she seems almost another self. I shall 
miss her gentle hand and kind words everywhere ; but 
she has arranged that I pass the month of May next 
at her pleasant home in Norfolk, which I fancy will 
be a little round of delight, almost a dissipation. The 
winter looks dark and cheerless now, but you see 
there is a bright spot for me in the spring-time. 

So every day brings something to be glad for — like 
your dear letter here, Mr. Dean, assuring me so ten- 
derly that these shades, though covering all my life 
and drooping the wings to every thought, do not at all 
cloud the hearts of my friends, nor make them love me 
less. But, oh, will it be always so? I hear you say 
in your dear, benign, but half -reproachful way: 
" That will depend very much upon yourself, my 
child." Alas ! I live in constant dread of losing the 
little power I have of interesting those around me; 
and so ere long the seeing world pass on and leave me, 
indeed, as Kirke White says, 

"Alone, all, all alone ! " 



112 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

Miss S wetland writes that the students from the 
seminary will resume their evening readings at the 
institution; and even that little source of improve- 
ment, in addition to the music, quite reconciles me to 
returning. As if to prolong my stay, though, two 
more editors have copied the Willowbank letter and 
sent me each a Ten, and another a Five. 

But the hour for packs and plunges has come, the 
third and last time for the day ; and if the thermom- 
eter with you be still 92° Fahrenheit, you would 
doubtless not object if against the troubling of the 
waters one were waiting to lead you in. Joan, 
though, relentless nymph, is here, and knows no such 
word as " wait." 



To 

Mr. Nicholas Dean, 

New York. 



CHAPTER XXV 



BLESSED BE NOTHING 



Long Island Water-Cure, Oyster Bay, September, 1848. 

They say that old Virginia's most ancient and 
proudest blood purples in your veins, but be that as 
it may, richer tides never warmed in the heart or 
pulsed in the hand of mortal. Indeed, dear Mrs. 
Hardy, all you lack is wings, and often climbing these 
hills around with you, I have fancied that even they 
might be budding from your fair shoulders. You 
took flight, though, without them, and could the 
flowers forget the spring or the summer the year, the 
world were not more drear than seemed this place to 
me the day after your departure. 

Some of our friends write that they think of re- 
turning; but should they all come back and summer 
brighten again over these lakes and the bay, I were 
still lonely without you, as were the halls, I fancy, 
of your Bellevue home. No wonder those sable do- 
mestics were in such raptures at your return ! Those 
boxes and parcels were enough to have made Africa 
herself glad, to say nothing of the ponies and the new 
carriage, that row of bright-eyed boys, little Missy, 
the sweet babe, and dear Mr. Hardy with a smile of 
master, husband, and father benignly blent upon his 
face, all gladdened and endeared by your loving pres- 

113 



114 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

ence. Eden herself should have brightened to wel- 
come such a party! 

Yesterday a little company of us sailed up the 
Sound, and passed an hour in the house where Gen- 
eral Washington, soon after the close of the war, 
stopped overnight with his friend Captain Daniel 
Young. A son and namesake of the same Daniel 
Young resides there still, but his head is covered with 
the garniture of the grave; and after having shown 
us the little rickety table by which the General and 
his father supped, the chairs they sat in, etc., he said 
mournfully: " Soon the old house and all in it, like 
myself, must fall to the ground." 

Dr. Eogers plays matron this week, and the pa- 
tients say nothing more about going away on account 
of their fare — biscuits so hard that one answers for 
a day, and mush so magnificent that Miss Kate avers 
the kernels must have been cracked three into one ! 

Could Mr. have looked back upon us the day 

after he left, and beheld what a gap his departure 
made in our circle, he would have acknowledged 
himself complimented if not a little flattered. Every 
time the ladies met they were regretting his absence, 
while the gentlemen sat around on the piazzas, look- 
ing, I fancy, not a little delighted at finding them- 
selves suddenly sole masters of the situation. The 
little Swede, though, has already so stepped into 
favor with the young ladies that they have nearly 
adopted him beau general in his place. He has told 
me many incidents of his life. Since coming to this 
country he has supported his aged father in compara- 
tive luxury by his hard earnings, the poor man, mean- 



BLESSED BE NOTHING 115 

time, supposing his son amassing a fortune in the 
New World. He knew the Bremers; once loved 
Fredrika. His accounts of her life, though, are very 
unlike the smooth, gliding way one sees in her 
writings. 

Dear Kate is sad this morning, finding herself little 
better than when she came. It seems, though, that I 
have everything to be glad for. Much like the old 
lady, you are thinking, who said " grace " until her 
last morsel was gone; then folding her hands and 
lifting up her eyes to heaven, exclaimed : " Blessed be 
nothing ! " But, dear Mrs. Hardy, so thinking, you 
lose sight of the May moon your letter here so en- 
dearingly pictures, with its long delightful drives, the 
sails on the river, or gathering flowers with you by 
your beautiful home. Ah! just for the joy of that 
promised elysium you have sketched upon the plane 
of my future, may the blessings of Abraham's tent 
rest upon you and your house forever, ma tendre 
fidele amie. 

• • © • • • 

To 

Mrs. Hardy, 

"Riverside/* Norfolk, Va. 



CHAPTEE XXVI 



SAVED BY HOPE 



Long Island Water-Cure, Oyster Bay, October, 1848. 

The delay of my note was amply compensated, 
reaching you as it did so illustriously companioned. 
How the simple thing must have blushed, though, 
being read while your thoughts were yet full of words 
from the burning pen of the Sage of Ashland ! 

I have also a letter from dear Mrs. Nott this morn- 
ing. She says since their return the good Doctor, one 
day in the college reading-room, counted a letter of 
mine in thirty-two different papers and periodicals ; 
and they both advise, in case I have written enough 
such, that they be collected into a volume. Look at 
that, dear Mr. Dean, and from such a source, too! 
You are laughing, I know, at the idea of my becoming 
a has bleu; but it is, to say the least, very gratifying 
to have friends like Doctor and Mrs. Nott so volun- 
tarily interested in one's behalf. Oh! how gladly 
would I put forth any effort whatever to save my 
friends all further solicitude, and myself the haunting 
fears of a life-long dependence. But, alas ! nevermore 
shall I be sufficient unto myself, unless — but you 
would have no faith in a vision or anything that looks 
like a touch of the supernatural; so I have never 
dared mention to you a phenomenal experience I once 

116 



SAVED BY HOPE 117 

had, whose closing scenes were brighter even than the 
better days that Job came upon at last. Not much 
to rely upon, yon are thinking. But, dear Mr. Dean, 
" we are saved by hope," while despair is the dark 
angel of the soul, whose touch is lead, and finally 
sinks body and soul both. Then is it not wiser that 
we make every to-morrow the brightest possible, even 
at the risk of imitating the drowning man, catching 
at a straw! 

However, I am in the world, and cannot — at least 
very conveniently — get out of it ! I am in the hands 
of God, too, who has placed me among my fellows 
and veiled my eyes, seemingly as much to try them as 
me; for go where I will, myself provokes the sym- 
pathizing interest of all hearts. Even the Doctor 
asked me the other day how I would like to pass the 
winter here. I replied: 

" I should be most happy to do so, but it is quite 
impossible." He then asked if I could be as con- 
tented here as at the Blind Institute. I said : 

" Oh ! setting aside all considerations of continued 
benefit to my eyes, this institution is a paradise com- 
pared with that one ! " 

He then remarked : " We shall be less in number 
then and more like a family." 

The good Quaker steward and stewardess, too, 
often say : " I think we must keep thee here this win- 
ter, thou wilt be so much company for us " ; while the 
student brother of the Doctor quite as often alludes 
to my teaching him French, which, aided by " mem- 
ory dear," I could do even without the eyes. How- 
ever, thanks to the breezes, the baths, the plain diet, 



118 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

and good company, John, the cook, can call me " ze 
pale lady " no more, and I shall in all probability 
return to the institution two weeks from to-day. Miss 
Marsh, leaving then, will see me to the institution 
carriage, already engaged to be at the wharf ; and do 
not forget, please, Mr. Dean, that I am to hear Mr. 
Bellows' first discourse after his return from Europe. 

All the ladies heard your last letter, and laughed 
much over the slips of your pen. Mrs. Judge Nye, of 
Ohio, a patient, generally reads my letters for me, and 
she is always delighted, as well as myself, when there 
is one from my good friend, Mr. Dean. 

It is like a new joy to know that dear Mrs. B 

has caught such a new lease of life from the waves 
and briny breath of the sea. My best love to her, 
please, as also to dear Mrs. Dean and Miss Juliet, 

A package from the institution last evening 
brought the card that enables me to write you with 
my own hand this morning. A thousand regrets, 
though, that I have nothing more fitting or more 
worthy to break upon these new and beautiful reas- 
surances of your abiding friendship than simply 
thanks ; but thanks, dear Mr. Dean, until you go wad- 
ing through them as one goes rustling through the 
golden leaves of autumn, with more, and still more, 
forever falling, falling! 



To 

Mr. Nicholas Dean, 

New York. 



CHAPTER XXVII 



THE WAKNING 



Long Island Water-Cure, Oyster Bay, October, 1848. 

Nine o'clock here puts all to sleep, and now no 
sound frets the air save the rustling of the leaves and 
the fall of dropping waters. Saying some things one 
says too much, while not saying them one says too 
little ; and such are the ever-recurring and ever-vary- 
ing charms of companionship that nor tongue nor pen 
may ever be found quite delicate enough to name or 
describe — those little fleeting romances born in the 
kaleidoscope of a thought, a blush of feeling or a 
glance of the eye — things so nearly nothing that, like 
day and night in the twilight, they are and are not; 
and yet bereft of them, what a barren, nameless thing 
companionship becomes : a wave shorn of its bubbles, 
a flower robbed of its bloom. Behold then why it is 
that I so often write my friends when I can suppose 
them fast asleep: no lack of responses then in their 
smiles, no glances from their eyes lost — soul to soul 
and no veils between. 

Mrs. Emery writes that one evening on the veranda 
of their hotel at Saratoga Mr. Graham made himself 
quite the centre of attraction talking of me and the 
strange foreshadowing of my lot that I was beguiled 

119 



120 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

into telling him about by his first recounting a phe- 
nomenal experience of his own. We were in the 
library where, during my visit, the old gentleman 
often read the papers to me and we lingered talking 
until Mrs. Emery came to announce luncheon ready. 
This time throwing down the paper and settling him- 
self back in the arm-chair like one sure of being 
listened to with interest : 

It was half a century ago, he said, in a port on the 
Mediterranean where he had been some time await- 
ing the vessel that was to take him to England after 
an absence of nearly four years. At last the vessel 
was signalled off the harbor, and he retired to his 
room that night in a mood little conducive to sleep. 
Still, hardly had his head pressed the pillow when, as 
a curtain is dropped, he was standing alone on a 
far-off desolate beach with a storm raging about him, 
the lightnings flashing, thunders roaring, and the bil- 
lowy waves breaking upon the shore. Then by a flash 
longer lingering, as it seemed, the outline of a ship 
rose distinctly to his view, when as by a light right 
above the ship he could see the deck, even, and the 
men whom he knew were the crew, and mark their 
affrighted faces upturned to the flaming masts that 
quick bent to the waves, and the ship went down. He 
awoke, but, strange to say, more occupied with 
thoughts of his father than of the scene he had wit- 
nessed — the father whom he had lost in India, and 
for whose health they had left England four years 
before — recalling his counsels, his looks, his dying 
words, etc., until he fell into the same state again and 
lived it all over, standing on the same beach with 



THE WARNING 121 

the same storm raging about him, the same flashes of 
lightning, the roaring thunders, the same ship rising 
to his view with the same light lingering above it, 
revealing the deck, the men, their affrighted faces and 
all until the ship went down and he awoke as before, 
but so impressed this time with the warning he had 
received, that when the hour came for going on 
board he suffered the vessel to spread her sails and 
quit the harbor without him. 

" She was never heard of more, though," the old 
gentleman added with a sigh, and I instinctively re- 
plied : 

" Oh ! if I had only been as wise as you were, Mr. 
Graham, and turned my steps another way at the 
warning I received, the darkness might never have 
overtaken me." 

" The warning you received — what was it? " he 
asked with so much interest that I told him the 
vision that was trailed before my wide-open eyes in 
the blaze of day just two years before the darkness 
of it came to me — told it to him as many, many times 
I have been on the point of telling it to you, my dear 
friend, but could never find just the right way or the 
right words for introducing it; and I am glad now 
that the reference to it in my letter to your father has 
made you anxious to hear it. 

It was in the Lima Seminary, a little south of Eoch- 
ester, that I first began to quarrel with myself as to 
my future. I loved " the tall student," as they used 
to call him, the moment we met, but there was al- 
ways something in my heart that rebuked any idea I 
had of marrying him as selfish. 



122 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

" Let hini go and marry some rich girl," the voice 
seemed to say, " and you go and do thus and so " — 
that thus and so meaning no less than helping 
smooth the way for the long line of sisters younger 
than myself. Indeed, it had come to be a con- 
stant struggle with me between love and duty, 
until, as my last term at school neared the end, 
it seemed ever present to my thoughts. One day 
the eleven o'clock bell struck that dismissed one 
set of classes and called another. My class was 
on a review in Legendre, and for the past hour I had 
been busy in my room with the problems for that day, 
the last of which I had just finished when the bell 
struck; and shutting the book I half rose, eager to 
dart out the moment the tide of girls should pass my 
open door. My roommate, Carrie Bannister, was 
ahead, and in just the fleeting seconds that she was 
crossing the threshold, reaching the table and laying 
down her books, oblivious to all the present the soul 
in me was lifted away into the future and made to 
look on myself wading through a long, dark, wan- 
dering life that my recollection has divided into ten 
scenes ; and having this card and pencil, suppose I 
paint those ten scenes to you now as I have so often 
wished to do. For the first one then, imagine your- 
self for the nonce dropped out of this life into the 
shadowy land of souls where, through your spirit- 
eyes, you are made to look on yourself in white and 
much else that is white, whose significance you are be- 
ginning to feel when right over there, or a little way 
off, you behold another self in deep black with a 
group of others around also in black. You sense, too, 



THE WARNING 123 

the great heat blazing down and the water rolling 
near. Notice those three things — they are landmarks 
by which you will know the scene when in real life 
you come to it again. Then, as by a turn of thought, 
yourself in white becomes the self in black, when you 
are suddenly overwhelmed by the world around be- 
coming as black as night, the awful sense of which 
does not leave you ; but after a little you are conscious 
of going, or rather of being borne or carried along 
through the darkness; then a pause, a long pause; 
then lo ! as by the wave of a hand, out in the distance 
the darkness begins to take on an uprising, over- 
awing shape of its own that fills you with an inde- 
scribable fear. It is a little way off, but drawn by 
some indefinable force you steadily approach the 
forbidding presence, every thought burning with 
dread, until so close that you touch it, only to find 
the surface a made or manufactured thing that half 
lessens down your awe of it. Then as in a flash 
you discover it specked all over with tiny little 
edges of something golden; you fall to picking them 
out with your right hand and dropping them into 
your left ; and when the hand is nearly full, with the 
reflection that it is money comes the remembrance 
of what you had felt yourself so called upon to do; 
and when you go to drop another shining piece 
into your hand, lo! all the others are gone, and you 
are conscious that they have been borne away by what 
you were thinking. Then through what seem ages 
upon ages, with the same dark old presence bent 
above and around, you move on, on, forever gather- 
ing those same shining bits with the one intent shut 



124 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

up in your thoughts literally spiriting them away. 
Then comes a change that words seem hardly able to 
describe : the gold is gone, not a shining speck is vis- 
ible, and in its place a great vacuum lies spread out 
before you ; and lo ! while you look, quantities of a 
dark green material in lumps, rolls, or bunches rise 
up instead, not at all filling the space the gold has 
left, but simply stacked up in it, and your comment 
is: icorthless. Still, impelled by the same force that 
moved you to gather the shining pieces, you lift 
a little bunch from the top, when, seeing all its edges 
flash golden, you exclaim: "Why! it is precious, 
surely." Then for the gathering of the dark green 
stuff along the rougher ways that come, with sounds 
of alarm filling the air, there are no words. Xo words 
either for the long wandering years that follow of the 
same gathering, gathering, but never possessing, so 
interminable it seems. Then at last the dark green 
stuff also disappears — only a little up at the left-hand 
side and the base or ground whereon it had stood re- 
maining green. You are not astonished now as you 
were at the disappearance of the gold ; but while you 
stand looking at the vacuum, lo ! farther in toward 
the heart of the gloomy old presence a long line of 
golden squares begins to lengthen itself into view, so 
tightly wedged together, though, as to resemble seams 
in a rock, and over them, too, something like a yel- 
lowish dust that must needs be brushed away, which 
while you look disappears. Then up toward the right- 
hand end they grow loose, they come out to you, your- 
self seems to draw them as by a kind of right. You 
see their creased edges and you know that they are 



THE WARNING 125 

gold. They are too large for your hands — you place 
them in your left arm, then under that arm, then in 
your other arm; then you walk away with some- 
thing like the pride of possession warming in your 
thoughts. You reflect : " Why ! this is wealth. I can 
go now and have whatever I wish,'* and for the first 
time in all the long way you are conscious of com- 
panionship, or of someone with you with whom you 
exchange words, or more strictly thoughts. You cross 
water in something that rocks under your feet; you 
seem more to fly than to go. Then on, on, quite a 
way ; then you turn to look back and discover that all 
the way you have been coming has been a long climb- 
ing way, and you are standing upon a very great 
height. You turn to go on, but lo ! out in the distance 
right above the horizon there comes a little break in 
the great dome of night, letting through what you first 
think foaming waters ; but as they fall and come 
rolling toward you in little eddies growing larger and 
larger and you see the darkness melting away, the 
head wave breaks over you and it is as if the heavens 
had opened above and you shout : " Oh ! the light, the 
light.'" You turn and behold one form standing apart 
with downcast eyes as if more dazzled by the light 
than seeing it. No word — the presence itself seeming 
to say : I have been coming with you all the way — the 
thought covering the idea also of having shared it all. 
And there it ends — your roommate has walked per- 
haps six steps from the door-sill to the little table, and 
you are not yet quite risen to your feet. The two 
strokes of the bell that caused you to start to rise are 
ringing in the air yet. You fly down to your class, 



126 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

but all the flying in the world will never chase the 
seeming thousand years of that vision from your 
thoughts. Youth, health, joy, and hope keep you 
from growing morbid over it, but there it stands 
with its every scene burned into your memory. 

I have pictured it, my dear friend, as though it 
were you, but alas ! into what stern realities have the 
first four scenes of it been translated upon my own 
life — the scene in white you will recognize for my 
solemn marriage by the pillowed couch of one who 
had only four little hours to stay; then the scene in 
black the burial away out there by the lake, myself 
in black with the others, and the July sun blazing 
down upon us ; then the little space between, and that 
awful waking that found the world engulfed in night ; 
then lo ! by a mode of travel — cars and steamer — all 
new to me, literally borne or carried along through 
the darkness to the long pause in that gloomy insti- 
tution whose end is not yet. Welcome will be the 
fifth scene with all its dread, so only it come to toll 
me out of it. 

The fifth scene — what new shape, pray, can the 
darkness possibly take on to fill me with a more in- 
describable dread of it than I already have, with the 
power, too, to draw me into closer and closer contact 
with it? 

One circumstance connected with the coming on of 
the darkness, or third scene, has always seemed to me 
nearly as strange as the vision itself. In the house of 
the lady with whom I was stopping in Kochester was 
an invalid lady who in view of my departure on the 
morrow had come to pass the evening in the sitting- 



THE WARNING 127 

room. Going over to the sofa to bid her good-night 
and good-by, the little adopted nephew exclaimed: 

" Why don't yon wish Comstock p'easant dweams 1 " 

"Ah ! Tody dear/' she replied, " Comstock's pleas- 
ant dreams are always wide-awake ones." 

Smiling, I said: "I had a dream once when wide 
awake that was anything but a pleasant one." 

" Oh ! do tell it to me," she exclaimed, " do " — 
seizing my dress as if she wonld pnll me down be- 
side her, to which Miss Crane added her plea: 
" Yon will have to tell it to her now or she will not 
sleep a wink to-night." 

So, settling back in my chair, I recounted the 
vision exactly as I have told it to you, fairly startling 
my little audience and myself with the pathos of the 
closing words : " Oh ! the light, the light ! " as if I 
had indeed lived the darkness and the long wander- 
ing way of it through. 

Alas ! do we draw misfortunes to us by the condi- 
tions we ourselves create, or are they marked and 
lined for our coming and we in no wise responsible 
for the steps we take ? Be that as it may, recounting 
the vision to that invalid occupied one of the last little 
hours the light was to linger with me, for the morrow 
brought no day. 



To 

Mrs. Augusta Dean Buckley, 

New York. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 



SEASONED AWAY 



Long Island Water-Cure, Oyster Bay, October, 1848. 

Then my new friend, as yon call him, paid the in- 
stitution a visit as he said he should do before leav- 
ing for the South. Upon one topic at least his con- 
versation with Mr. C must have grown serious, 

since he hastens to inquire as to the giving away. I 
have indeed lived long enough to know that things are 
not always what they seem ; and the delicate caution 
implied in the words " a stranger and a foreigner " is 
only what my own heart would have whispered to me 
hack among the sunbeams. But, dear Sibyl, if the 
seal of cloud set upon my life be not enough to bar 
me from ever receiving a proposition for this dow- 
erless hand of mine, my own conscience, methinks, 
should be enough to stay me from accepting it. 

Everything conspired to render the evening of my 
arrival here a fatality. Even Mr. Dean's letter to the 
Doctor, arranging for my coming, had played its part. 
Containing as it did a sketch of the singular inci- 
dents of my life, my " new friend " chancing to be 
near, the letter was passed over for his perusal; 
whereupon he exclaimed : 

" Certainly you will have the young lady to come? 
And as for special attendant, for all the walking she 

128 



REASONED AWAY 129 

shall have me for her escort. I should like to see a 
lady who has passed through all she has, and yet be 
charming as the gentleman says." 

As I wrote you, the Doctor met the little brunette 

Miss M and me at the landing. Coming together 

we were assigned rooms adjoining with only a por- 
tiere or curtain between. After our trunks were 
brought up we had just time for a bath, as a begin- 
ning to the treatment we had come for. When I ob- 
jected to having my hair wet, as it would take it so 
long to dry, the maid said : 

" Oh ! that is nothing. It is a part of the treatment 
here to wear it down. Besides, yours is so curly it 
will hang in rolls, and I shall make it dry enough with 
towels not to damp your dress. There is a Virginia 
lady here who is as tall as you. Her hair is black and 
nearly touches the ground, yet she never has it done 
up except Sundays. It couldn't dry, the baths come 
so often. She is only an attachee, but she takes the 
baths the same." 

" An attachee — what is an attachee^ " I asked. 

" Oh ! we call them that when they are only here 
with their husbands, wives, or friends." 

Worrying most of all about going to the table the 
first time, I asked about the dining-room. 

" Oh ! " she said, " right under the great stairs that 
you came up are the folding doors that open to it. It 
is the other half of the wide hall that runs through 
the building, with one long table through the centre. 
Half-way down is the divison, and at the upper end 
of the first part the Hardys sit — Mr. Hardy at the 
head and Mrs. Hardy on his right, little Missy at his 



130 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

left. Tbey have two ' blacks ' that wait on them. Be- 
yond them is the French end of the other table, with 
not a Frenchman among them ; and yet they all gabble 
French. The Captain at the head is English, the 
little man at his right is a Cuban. He makes all the 
music you will hear — plays everything. Next to him 
is a German, too deaf to hear anything, and yet he 
talks French as fast as any of them. I s'pose he 
knows what they say by the motion of their lips. 
Eight across from him sits the Swede, and above him 
a Russian, the most polite gentleman here. Every- 
body likes him. They are all lame or something but 
him. He was well when he came except the medicine 
he took when he had yellow fever." 

" Where are Miss Marsh and I to sit? " I asked. 

" 'Way on up next to the Doctor, and right opposite 
Dr. and Mrs. Nott. He is president of a college 
somewhere, but is here for his rheumatism. Mrs. 
Xott has been over to the city to-day — she must have 
come up with you in the boat. They have their col- 
ored Moses to wait on them. That is my table, 
though, or my part of it, and I am to show you down 
when the bell rings. All the help here wait at table." 

There are moments in the lives of all, I believe, 
when we feel that we are transcending ourselves ; and 
entering the long dining hall that red sunset evening, 
draped in a floating muslin of black and gray, my 
frowzy amber head full half above the little black 
one at my side, although seeing scarcely more than to 
follow the shadow of the girl who was leading the 
way, the soul in me never was so regally happy or so 
content. Indeed, my every thought must have worn 



REASONED AWAY 131 

a smile, as though conscious of drifting at last into 
an atmosphere kindred or all its own. When we were 
seated the Doctor named Miss Marsh and myself to 
the venerable president opposite; Mrs. Nott we had 
both been presented to, and meeting her now, added 
to the Doctor's polite inquiries of Mr. Dean, and his 
cordial comments on the style of diet he was helping 
us to, made the dreaded first meal pass very pleas- 
antly and without a word of reference, even, to my 
not seeing. In the drawing-room soon after, I was 
introduced to the fatality that you call my " new 
friend." His first exclamation was : " Why ! I have 
expect to see you a little lady instead of a statue 
Grec; and I have promise the Doctor to have you for 
my pet, and do all the walking with you." 

" Ah ! " I replied, " this is not the first time I have 
found it a disadvantage not to be small ! " 

Strange to say, despite his memories of foreign 
skies and the longer years he has lived, I seemed to 
have known him always, and would have been little 
surprised if up out of the forgotten past he had 
evoked the time or the place of our meeting before. 

And so days passed, weeks passed, the hours all 
winged delights, until two moons had gladdened the 
world with their light ; then he went away, and now 
he writes me back that sooner the waters of the 
" Cocoa Spring " here run bitter and the lilies of the 
pond grow black than ever fade or change his 
thoughts of me. A little time ago the Doctor received 
word that he might return for a while ; and oh ! Sibyl, 
supposing he does come, and supposing he does say 
to me what he intimated to you and asks me to go 



132 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

with him, what shall I say? What would you say, 
what would everybody say, and most of all, what 
would they say in heaven? You know the vision, and 
was not that, think you, a dark foreshadowing of 
what my lot is to be? When every other objection 
and every other obstacle has been reasoned away and 
reasoned away, I look back into that mysterious fore- 
shadowing, and every voice in my soul whispers: 
nay, nay, nay. 



To 

Miss Sibyl G. Swetland, 

Preceptress, Blind Institute, New York. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

BUBBLING SWEET WATERS TO ALL 

Long Island Water-Cure; Oyster Bay, October, 1848. 

Saturday evening Dr. S returned from the 

city with news of a package there for me, which he 
forgot to bring ; and Sunday there being no service in 

the little church, Miss M and I often trespassed 

upon the sacred hours with wonders who it could be 
from, what it contained, and so forth, until it oc- 
curred to us that colored George must have seen it. 
So we called the thick-lipped boy and bade him de- 
scribe it. 

" Why ! Missus," he said, " de box I seen dar in de 
Doctor's office is 'bout almost as long as my arm, and 
half as wide ; but I'se gwine to de city agin to-morrow 
and I'll bring it." 

This morning when we had arisen, bathed, and 
walked once around that gem of a pond, sparkling in 

the sunbeams, as Miss M says, " like a blue eye 

in the face of nature," colored George came running 
to meet me. 

" Oh ! Missus, I'se got de box ! I corned in de night. 
It rained powerful, but I held de umbril ober it all 
de way." Poor little fellow ! The stage had left, and 
he had to walk from Hicksville, six miles. Once, ex- 

133 



134 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

hausted, he lay down to pass the night, then gathered 
courage and toiled on, but fell asleep on the piazza 
before they got down to let him in. 

Captain Daniels cnt the twines and removed the 
papers, and I wish you could have heard his eloquent 
praise of all the tasteful appurtenances to this beau- 
tiful, beautiful desk. Mr. Otis said that no one but 
Mrs. Hardy could have selected them. Poor Mr. 
Mensel looked what he could not speak. George 
hopped and clapped his hands at everything, while 
Aunt Janey went into a little camp-meeting of 
shouts. 

"Bress de Lawd, bress de Lawd! My eyes hab 
neber seen de likes befo' ! All the ladies said they 
were jealous, and Miss M was a little, I think. 

My sweet friend, please accept my poor, poor 
thanks until I can find some more worthy means of 
acknowledging your exceeding kindness. Your heart 
is, indeed, a " Cocoa Spring " set around with flowers, 
and bubbling sweet waters to all. I never think of 
you but something like old Virginia herself, bathed 
in sunbeams, breaks upon my view, by whose light, 
and the light of love, I am christening this charm- 
ing little home for my heart by writing you from 
it, dearest, with my own hand. But, dear Mrs. 
Hardy, my heart is too full this morning for words. 
I cannot half thank you, half bless you, nor half 
write you. Please let my grateful love, then, atone 
for all. 

Mr. has sent word to the Doctor that he may 

return for a little time before leaving for the South; 
while to me he writes : 



BUBBLING SWEET WATERS TO ALL 135 

" I am coming to make a birthday dinner for you." 
Besides, Miss Kate begs me to remain as long as she 
does, or I should leave for the institution next Satur- 
day. However, I shall go soon, and there please let 
your next sweet favor be addressed ; while, in all that 
is heartfelt, I stay forever thine. 



To 

Mrs. Hardy, 

Norfolk, Va. 



CHAPTEK XXX 



AT LEAST AKIN 



Long Island Water-Cure, Oyster Bay, November, 1848. 
When at the close of our last ramble among the 
trees here, we joined hands with onr exile friend and 
pledged to be brother and sisters forever, there was a 
prophecy shut up in my heart that sooner or later he 
would wish to change it. That day might never have 
come, though, but for the circumstance of having 
twice saved my life since his return. First, from 
drowning, which Miss M brought about by leav- 
ing me on The Point while she returned to the lunch 
place up the bay for her portemonnaie. Meantime 
the tide, that waits for no one, would have borne me 
out to sea but for her long heroic race, returning, then 
back, and away over the hill and around down to the 
house, where fainting, she half gasped the words that 
brought our friend speedily to my rescue. Whatever 
I was to him before, I was certainly no less to him 
now. He had saved my life, and in a way established 
a claim at least akin to the little word own, which his 
actions as well as his words seemed ever and ever re- 
peating. The days passed though, made up of rides 
and walks and talks as erst they were until the pro- 
posed birthday dinner for me came off, to which the 

136 



AT LEAST AKIN 137 

little places around were compelled to contribute, be- 
sides what was brought up from New York. All the 

Cure folk were invited, and the poet, Mr. F , the 

Captain and the Doctor made speeches, leaving of 
course the one who presided to surpass all the others 
in compliment and good wishes. 

The greater one is, always the more indulgent to 
little things ; and not only great in himself, but wear- 
ing as he does, like a mantle wrapped closely about 
him, the polish of many peoples gathered in many 
lands, listening to the tender benignity of his words it 
seemed that a break must have come in heaven and 
on some shining way there one had paused, the while 
to say pleasant things of and to me. The table was 
as bountiful as beautiful, and the occasion a souvenir 
wherewith to gladden the birthdays of a lifetime. 
But oh ! the long, delightful walk after the dinner was 
over ! On the brow of the cliff we lingered, overlook- 
ing the waves whence so lately he had rescued me, 
until the red sunset had flooded the bay, the hills, and 
the autumn-clad forests in one vast sea of crimson 
and gold which melted even in upon our hearts and 
made us richer, the while, than we had words to ex- 
press ; and so stood silent, like the twin stars in the 
heavens, sharing each the other's glory, and wearing 
each the other's smile. At length drawing my arm 
closer to his side and covering my hand with his as 
if the more securely to guide my steps down the de- 
scent, he said: 

" I once watched the sun go down like this upon Mt. 
Lebanon. About half-way down to where some of 
our party were waiting to be rejoined by us for the 



138 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

night we halted, not more for the rest than to con- 
template the awful grandeur of a world, as it seemed, 
enveloped in flame. Suddenly, though, our reverie 
was broken by an incident that called for quite as 
much strength and rather more courage than may be 
often exacted of one; and while your thoughts have 
been in heaven, judging by the looks on your face, 
I have been looking back over the years, marvelling 
how that one little incident, all unconsciously to my- 
self, has been leading my steps one after another even 
down to this hour — yes, even to my coming to this 
Cure. The incident, such as it was, secured me two 
life-long friends, through one of whom, after our 
tour of Asia, I went to London, and thence to the 
house of a banker in Edinburgh whose daughter I 
married; and some time after, through the other 
friend, I came to America and embarked in cotton 
growing, cotton buying and shipping until in New 
Orleans, waiting a steamer, four graves had to be 
made for me — wife, child, and two servants. Yellow 
fever took them, and thousands and thousands of 
times since I have said in my soul : ' Would God it 
had taken me also ' — as indeed it did come very near 
doing. Life is nothing without health, and to shirk 
the ill effects of that fever was what brought me to 
the pleasure I had in meeting you the evening of your 
arrival here." 

Again days passed, all balmy and beautiful until, as 
if offended with the world, the breezes suddenly broke 
into a furious blast and fires were needed, but could 
not be lighted at first because of the swallow nests 
that had blocked the chimneys. Toward evening, 



AT LEAST AKIN 139 

though, when the last round of baths had been taken, 
and all were out for exercise in the roaring winds, 
a sheet-iron stove was brought and placed in the 
drawing-room, that by opening all the doors and win- 
dows had been made to draw. More chilled than 
usual before going out, I put over my heaviest dress 
that thick wadded wrapper that you admired so much ; 
but, hurried away by a call from the ladies on the 
veranda, I left my gloves, and returning, my hands 
were nearly numbed. Discovering the fire in the 
drawing-room, I rushed up to it while the other ladies 
went on their way to their rooms, leaving the heavy 
hall door to bang after them. But before hardly a 
moment had passed, as it seemed, the heat growing 
too intense upon my face, I was stepping back when 
these affrighted words broke upon my ear : 

" God of heaven ! you are all on fire ! " and in 
one second more the great hearth-rug, wrenched from 
its fastenings, was being wrapped and held tight 
around me. 

The two side doors were open, all the windows 
raised, and the long curtains fluttering and snapping 
nearly to the centre of the room. Only a few left in 
the house, they beyond call, and whence could help 
possibly have come save from the great Unseen who 
has said : " Lo ! I am with you alway." Our friend — 
not brother friend — I cannot call him that any more 
— was in his room, the north parlor that Dr. and 
Mrs. Nott had during the summer. For his walk he 
had been to the Landing, and returning had thrown 
off his overcoat and hat, and stood by the bureau, he 
says, brushing his hair when the second time, as it 



140 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

seemed, the brush was thrust from his hand and he, 
not knowing how or why, left his room and crossed 
the hall to the drawing-room just in time to save me 
from the flames as, but a little time before, he had 
snatched me from the waves. Saved, I say, but " so 
as by fire " you would have thought by the charred 
things that hung about me, and the blisters on the two 
dear hands that had battled for my rescue. 

His return here, you know, was ostensibly to await 
letters again from Europe before leaving for the 
South; and hardly had the two hands recovered ere 
those letters, that I had come to feel had something 
to do with my destiny, came ; and when they had been 
read and some hours given to them, he sent me an 
invitation for a walk. Never was autumn afternoon 
more lovely ; and on the brow of the big hill, seated in 
the two seats there by the old oak, he told me that it 
was in truth but to pass a little time more with me 
that he had returned, and that he would fain take me 
away with him now to be the light and love of his 
sunny home in the South. The awaiting, though, of 
those letters and the hours of consideration that had 
been given to them had left me time to so frighten 
my heart with questionings and questionings that 
when the moment came for the words by which, as it 
seemed, my fate was to be sealed both for this life and 
the next, I did not, could not, promise to go with 
him now. 

You know the vow on my lips to the dead. That, 
though, were of little weight compared to the great 
happiness of devoting the life he so heroically saved 
to the brightening of his. But oh ! with these veiled 



AT LEAST AKIN 141 

eyes what is there to prevent my hanging weights in- 
stead upon the joys that he already has, what to bar 
me from weaving cloud with all the sunshine of his 
way? Nothing, alas! save it be the faculty heaven 
seems to have endowed me with for so using the little 
ray of light that I have as to keep out of view the 
night bent above and around me. Once talking of a 
fellow student who escaped Siberian banishment with 
him, he said: 

" Some people seem born possessed of that kind 
of alchemy which enables them to derive benefit 
or extract good from whatever befalls them." I 
wondered then if he were not including me in his 
alchemistic idea, for of a surety inference and percep- 
tion have come to so quickly forestall the ever vary- 
ing positions of my dependence, that in them I am 
often conscious of so toying with the shadows of those 
around me as to win from them a lovingness, so to 
speak, that I never could have done with the brightest 
eyes in the world. My supposition he soon after 
verified by adverting again to his taking me away 
with him to be the light of his Southern home, which I 
quickly checked with: " Dark objects only absorb the 
light, impart it never." 

" No," he replied, " except when so highly polished 
as to become the most powerful reflectors of it." 
Then followed his first open reference to my not see- 
ing, when he said : 

" Your l veiled eyes,' as you call them, I sometimes 
think might with more propriety be termed unveiled 
eyes, since by what my learned kinsman of Tarsus 
pronounced ' spiritual discernment ' they have been 



142 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

already more than supplemented to you." Farther 
on, returning from a long walk, he said: 

" The resolute independence that you must have 
possessed, your privation has softened to a trustful 
dependence that to me has made you the most fas- 
cinating of women. Upon my word, half-way around 
the big hill alone I am ready to blow my brains out ; 
but with your enchanting company I start and I am 
back again, hardly knowing that I have left the house 
yet." 

In another walk, following down a narrow path 
among the pines, the conversation turned upon the 
strange providences by which our paths had come to 
meet : 

" So," he said, " and when at last we have climbed 
so far up the winding staircase of being as to overlook 
the lines by which we have come, we shall doubtless 
see that what in our past we have named misfortunes 
were in reality only so many links in the great chain 
by which we have been led. My exile from home and 
country when only nineteen was almost equivalent 
to your banishment from the day; death robbed 
you of what seemed your all, and surely it robbed me 
as well; and was it not up out of those very events 
that finally amid the shadows of a day here our paths 
merged into one? " 

So we walked and talked until, as I say, those long- 
waited-f or letters came ; but talk, alas ! changes noth- 
ing. Facts stay always the same, and this is one of 
them : We cannot carry the freshness of the morning 
through all of the day ; in other words, we cannot be 
always young ; and would I not wrong him, think you, 



AT LEAST AKIN 143 

by linking my hands now to his for those more som- 
bred years that he seems never to think of? 

This morning he left for New York, to-morrow 

Miss M and I go, and in one day more all the 

others depart. He is coming to see me at the insti- 
tution, and peradventure betime the lintels to that 
world of gloom are shaken by his tread, I shall be 
looking to him for rescue again as from the waves 
and the fire. But go or stay, charmed from the sla- 
very of melancholy to the palace of his sympathies, it 
was easy to love him, and the days themselves have 
sufficed to bind my heart around with ties as many 
braided as the walks these trees among, and as im- 
possible ever to sever as loosen or unstrand the 
chains that bind the spheres. I thought I owed one in 
heaven for illumining all my soul with love, but we 
never know our highest nor our best until we rise 
to the circumstance that calls it forth; and whatever 
be the result of this strange crossing of paths here, I 
shall remember him always as one of the few — the 
very few, alas ! — who put us linked hands with all that 
is high and heavenward beneath the stars. 



To 

Mrs. Hardy, 

"Riverside," Norfolk, Va. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

MYSELF DID LOOK ON MYSELF 

Blind Institute, New York, November, 1848. 

Many times the sun has rounded alternate morn 
and eve upon the world since the date of my last, but 
loving as are his beams on all the hills have been my 
memories of the beautiful Seneca and those who dwell 
by its shore. 

Notwithstanding I came back last spring so cou- 
rageous for the remainder of my stay here, when all 
had left for summer vacation and the days grew long 
and hot and sultry, the trees, even, wilting and droop- 
ing their heads in the great heat that burned and 
blazed above the city, and all the feet that went to 
and fro grew faint and slow and weary, what wonder 
that I, too, lost heart and grew faint and lone and 
weary and — shall I say it? — very melancholy. Yes, 
melancholy , that state of mind touching nearest the 
sublime, caring for nothing, regretting nothing, hop- 
ing nothing and fearing nothing, content to sit for- 
ever, albeit like the Sphinx in the desert, with shut 
eyes peering down into herself; or, mayhap, more 
like one drifting down the stream of time on a raft 
of roses, smiling at the Niagaras beyond! But the 
good angels did not forget me if I did them, and by 
a providence as beautiful as unlooked for, I went up 

144 



MYSELF DID LOOK ON MYSELF 145 

the Sound to pass a few weeks at the Long Island Wa- 
ter-Cure, whence I have just returned, restored al- 
most to my old laughing self again, at least in mente 
et corpose. Wherever we take up blessings, though, 
we must needs always lay something down, and happy 
are we when what we lay down is not more than what 
we take up ! A beautiful might-have-been crossed my 
path up there — tall, majestic, of fine military educa- 
tion, languages many, travel far, heart and hand 
free; and best of all, a heart large and generous 
enough to cover with love a wounded thing like me 
and take her for all his own. Said so, over and over 
he said so; and over and over — do you believe it! — 
I had the courage to say him nay. Surely I said him 
nay because — because — well, because so altogether 
have I been set apart from the ordinary lot of mor- 
tals. No one to blame, though; mine own hands 
builded the walls, fashioned the lock, and turned it 
upon myself while Fate, if you will, stood ready with 
her veil of cloud wherein to shroud me that, alas ! I 
see no more " eyes that look love to eyes again," nor 
mark the hands held out to me. So, first in spite of 
me, and then by mine own will even, I do but draw 
on apace toward that strange foreshadowing of my 
destiny at L wherein I, myself, did look on my- 
self wading through the unmarked years of night 
until ere long I came upon that gloomy old pillar, as 
I call it for lack of a fitter name, to whose treasures, 
you remember, myself was the enchanted " Open 
Sesame " as well as the dispenser ; which feature of 
it I am just now beginning to comprehend. Indeed, 
as another step, despite the many obstacles ever ris- 



146 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

ing to view, I have a little plan shut up in my heart 
that looks beyond these walls again ere the roses take 
on their bloom ; but lest some unseen hand come and 
write " Tekel " upon it, it is perhaps better that I be 
not over-sanguine. Meantime, the world does not 
stand still if I do, and once more the frosts have 
bitten the leaves and the forests are robed in autumn's 
bleeding hues. The day god, too, is in the sky, glad- 
dening all the world. Even the gutters are turned 
into little seas of diamonds by his light, and the 
meanest things that crawl wear crowns and scarfs 
braided from his golden beams, while the world's 
most miserable abjects go strutting like very kings in 
rainbow mantles. How grudgingly, though, this little 
fragment ray comes shimmering down to me, so faint 
and yet so precious that I be in doubt sometimes if, 
after all, it melt not from the pitying eye of angels, 
or break from their departing wings. 

Now the band are in the chapel playing " Love 
Not " with the variations, while without, the winds 
seem blowing a sort of trumpet accompaniment; and 
how the tide of their rich harmony ebbs and flows 
along the borders of my soul, kindling thought and 
adding wings to fancy! Now they are scattering 
" Mozart's Requiem " on the air. Ah ! nothing 
strikes the chord of responsive memories like music, 
and Heaven be always praised for an atmosphere that 
may be formed into sweet sounds ! Looks of love are 
bright things, but the melting murmurs of its whis- 
pers are far more dear. Smiles play upon the heart, 
like moonbeams upon the waters; while words, low, 
tender, beautiful words, sink down into it, thence 



MYSELF DID LOOK ON MYSELF 147 

coming' forth in blossoms and clustering fruits like 
seeds lost in the earth. No wonder that poor Bee- 
thoven exclaimed: 

" All the pleasures of sight and sense, all that my 
eyes have ever looked on, would I give for one whis- 
per to my heart I " 

In every condition, though, we have something to 
be grateful for. Indeed, I doubt if we are ever so 
placed that we have -not more cause for joy than for 
mourning, more smiles for the day than tears for the 
night. Watchful spirits are at every post, angels 
with folded pinions are along every path; the world 
is full of them, and our feet never stumble, want never 
approaches, and ills of any kind are seldom long in 
the way, but some Samaritan hand comes to lift us 
out of them. No night is so dark, either, that our 
Father's smile cannot cheer it, and no place is so 
barren or so far removed that His blessings and 
mercies cannot reach it : and oh ! how rich and bounti- 
ful they come — new every morning, fresh every even- 
ing, and repeated every moment of our lives ! 



To 

Miss Eliza Hamilton, 

Geneva, N. Y. 



CHAPTEE XXXII 



MAY NOT BE 



Blind Institute, New York, November, 1848. 

Anothee year lias counted out its moons and its 
seasons to the world, and rounded nothing brighter 
upon my way than singing here every morning in 
Professor Eoot's class, and then go for a while to 
drum a piano whose musical days were long since 
past, or like mine, have been slow to begin. Yes, one 
other privilege I have — that of afflicting my friends 
anon with chapters like this, leaving the richer ones, 
by their own grace, to sutler that much from the pos- 
tal law of non-prepay. 

The wounded oyster lines his shell with pearl ; but 
instead, the wounded ones here have set the walls that 
girt them 'round to echoing forever with the melodies 
of song. They weep, though, weep, alas ! while they 
sing and while they play, silvering all the notes they 
weave with the glitter of their tears. Dews of the 
night are diamonds at morn. Then why not the tears 
we weep here be pearls in heaven? 

Good Mr. Dean's carriage was prompt at the gate 
for me to hear Dr. Bellows' Thanksgiving discourse 
on his return from across the seas ; and while he 
looked back over the past of our country and pointed 

148 



MAY NOT BE 149 

prophetically to its future, one could almost feel in 
his beautiful imagery the sublimities of the Rhine and 
the grandeurs of Switzerland, as well as the spirit 
lustre gathered among the ruins and sunny bowers of 
Italy, where her heroes fought, her martyrs bled, and 
her time-honored painters drew. 

From church I went to dine with Mr. Dean's daugh- 
ter, who is a very queen of a woman and loveliness 
itself. Indeed, it is only just to say of her as I once 
heard a Swede say. of his countrywoman, Fredrika 
Bremer : 

" In her soul heaven has happily blended all excel- 
lence." 

In the afternoon we visited the paintings at the Art 
Union. Mrs. Buckley was eyes for me and beauti- 
fully described all she saw, while Mr. B came 

along, as he said, to be eyes for her! 

" Yonder is the most clever thing in the exhibi- 
tion," he exclaimed, " ' The Mother's Prayer,' " 
which, while you gaze upon it, seems to breathe, I 
fancy, as though heaven had been moved by the tear 
melting from the upturned eyes. Mrs. Buckley was 
more enthusiastic over one of Mr. Hart's pieces, and 
both praised very much " The Young Mechanic," by 
Mr. Smith, of Ohio. But perhaps the most famous 
work of all there is " The Voyage of Life," by Mr. 
Cole. The design is the stream of life bearing on its 
rippling bosom a little boat, and in it an infant and 
an angel to guide. Farther on the impetuous youth 
seats himself at the helm, dashes furiously on amidst 
rocks and breakers, and so on down to tranquil old 
age where all is calm and peaceful; and from the 



150 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

spirit world, opening above, angels have come to 
beckon him away. 

Returning we chanced to pass the Polish exile, a 
noble, and once an officer of high rank, now " The old 
blind harper," whose voice, like the strings of his 
worn harp, was trembling in the breeze ; and while I 
listened to his sacred song, he seemed so like the 
weary pilgrim just described to me as waiting on the 
boat, that I almost fancied the angels above watch- 
ing the close of his strain to present him a new harp 
attuned to the airs of heaven. 

As the gifted Euler of St. Petersburg saw his fig- 
ures and angles fade, and all objects of sight pass into 

dim distance, so your friend Mr. J says the slow 

but sure hand of cataract is weaving her veils before 
his eyes, which science has never reached and surgery 
rarely turns away. But as Huber knew bees and their 

habits before his blindness, so Mr. J has learned 

the ways and the wants of the poor; and when the 
light shall cease to stream in upon his mind, mem- 
ories of the gladdened smile of the widow and the 
orphan will be to his heart a sunshine, brighter and 
more lasting than the day. 

A letter is no letter, dear Cora, unless it reveals 
something of the writer, and you are doubtless com- 
plaining that I have told you so little of myself. 
Myself, ah! that is the one person in the world of 
whom I would know everything, and yet am really 
able to know nothing. The time appointed to me here 
has nearly expired, and I seem no nearer an opening 
from the wilderness than when I came. My good 
friend Mr. Dean, however, still encourages me with: 



MAY NOT BE 151 

" Have no fears, my child ; there is wealth enough 
in New York to establish for you a pretty little sink- 
ing fund of five or six hundred a year, and it shall be 
done." But when my spirit eyes look into the faces 
of the angels, a conviction settles down around my 
heart that it may not, cannot be. I had once in mid- 
day a vision of darkness in which I lived, or thought 
I lived, long weary years of wandering, wandering; 
and since the darkness has so verily come to pass, is it 
not reasonable to suppose that the wandering may 
follow also ? Alas ! God only knows ; but it should be 
enough for those who trust in Him that He has said : 
" I will guide thee with mine eye." 



To 

Miss Cora Scranton, 

"Wittowbank," Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 



PEOUD AND HAPPY 



Blind Institute, New York, January, 1849. 

In the light of many memories I sit me down to 
write you. The holidays came and all were again 
abroad, and I need not tell you that this institution 
began to seem lonely enough to those too far from 
home friends to share with them the recreations and 
pleasures of the season, when, to my delight, Miss 
Marsh and her intended came and escorted me over 
to Brooklyn. 

The old Dutch custom of devoting the first day of 
the Xew Year exclusively to calling, for the gentle- 
men, is still kept up, and, they say, with even more 
than * its ancient enthusiasm, both in Brooklyn and 
Xew York. For this one day, at least, the ladies do 
turn democrats, and with open doors and hearts re- 
ceive all who choose to look in upon them. 

There was never a brighter winter morning than 
dawned upon the world January 1, 1849. Broadway 
was one grand masquerade. Proteus had less shapes 
than the fashions of its equipage. Heads of buf- 
faloes, bears, lions, and tigers were mounted on stage- 
coaches, omnibuses, and all sorts of vehicles that go 
on wheels and runners. Do not understand that these 
creatures were really abroad so uncaged, but lesser 

152 



PROUD AND HAPPY 153 

animals, you know, sometimes wrap themselves in the 
skins of the stronger ! 

Among the many who called upon your sweet sis- 
ters, Mrs. Barnes and Miss Emily, was the learned 
Professor Davies. Mathematicians are not always 
social in their feelings, fertile in imagination, nor 
fluent in speech; but one seldom meets so cordial, 
warm-hearted, and happy a man in conversation as 
Professor Davies. Listening to him, one would think 
he numbers all the fine arts in his string, and his 
formulas and infinite series besides. 

By some association the cause of my blindness was 
asked, whereupon I told the good Professor, play- 
fully, that I had sometimes thought that he might 
possibly have had a little to do with it; that striving 
to see the end of his mathematical course, after pass- 
ing many, many days, and not a few nights, over his 
too fascinating Legendre, Bourdon, Surveying, Cal- 
culus of Radicals, and other very interesting works, 
I awoke one morning to find the day god no longer in 
the sky. 

" He had doubtless overslept himself," suggested 
one. But indeed, dear Carrie, if I could only have 
succeeded in demonstrating to the good Professor by 
one of his own formulas that he was, in point of fact, 
the original cause of my blindness, I see no reason 
why I should not have presented my bill to him for 
at least a thousand dollars, my idea, you know, of 
fortune! Dear Mrs. Barnes, though, would soon have 
swept that pretty ruse away, for a little after I heard 
her saying low to him and the coterie around her: 

" The day she was a bride she was a widow, and 



154 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

before a month had elapsed grief drowned the light 
from her eyes." 

Never mind, though ; as Abdul Hassan said : " God 
is great, God is good," and ere long that little sum, 
at least, will surely be mine; and may you live, 
dearest Carrie, to see how rich and proud and happy 
I shall be with it! You are smiling, but you must 
know since going to the Water- Cure I have learned 
to live without meat, butter, salt, tea or coffee, 
quenching my thirst always, as Kirke White says, 
"Luxurious from the limpid wave." Do you see! 
And according to Graham's computation, a true veg- 
etarian can fare sumptuously as need be upon fifteen 
dollars per year. Then certainly the difference be- 
tween that sum and the interest on a thousand should 
clothe one and allow pocket money besides ! 

Well, my sweet friends had other calls, too, the gal- 
lant, the brave, the young, the gifted and fascinating, 
all pouring in by scores and dozens with " A Happy 
New Year ! " on their lips, music in their voices, and 
their brows beaming with smiles captured from the 
bright eyes and fair faces they had just left. 

It is astonishing how many words and ideas can be 
exchanged in a little time when all parties are agree- 
ably excited. Seemingly, in five minutes Dr. Powers 
presented the various modes of observing the day in 
all the different countries of Europe; while the pol- 
ished Marquand introduced us to Paris scenes so 
familiarly that we seemed almost enjoying her daz- 
zling fetes. Mr. Humphrey, of Amherst, talked of 
the classics, paintings, the land of art, and our sculp- 
tor, Powers, in Florence. Then reference was made 



PROUD AND HAPPY 155 

to the late New England festival where, I believe, he 
was toasted " Orator of the day." Lawyer Burr had 
on his sunniest face, and although so emphatically a 
man of the world, and so long a disciple of the grave 
Blackstone, no laugh was so merry as his and no ef- 
forts to please more heartfelt. I envy you such an 
uncle, and why should I not? Just think of his rich 
holiday gifts to Mrs. Barnes and Miss Emily, and 
then add to that the pleasure of his elegant society all 
the year round. 

Sunday morning we went to the Mission Sunday- 
school, the children of which are gathered, not from 
the highways and hedges of the country, but from the 
low ways and hovels of the city; and to appreciate 
what is being done for these little waifs of the street, 
one should first see them in their wretched haunts and 
then contrast them in the cheerful Sunday-school, 
after the hand of benevolence has washed them, put 
on them comely garments, and set their little feet in 
new shoes. Indeed, while I listened to them repeat- 
ing A, B, C, and reading, stammeringly, verses of 
Scripture, I could compare them to nothing but a 
cabinet of unwrought jewels, every lesson a touch 
from the hand of the polisher, revealing some new and 
hidden beauty. The school at present numbers over 
two hundred, and is taught and sustained by those of 
all denominations, who, like the great Teacher of 
mankind, delight in doing good. Mr. Barnes, for a 
New Year's gift, presented each of them one of " Mrs. 
Sherwood's Stories for Children," and by dint of 
much coaxing I told them " The Story of Little 
Jakey." 



156 ^ PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

Poverty is a school, but her discipline is not always 
healthful to the mind and heart. Too often her chil- 
dren become proficients in art and deceit, which 
through life they practice upon an unsuspecting 
world. Even there, a child, too provident, was found 
smuggling a second book to sell on the morrow, as she 
said, for pennies to buy bread. Indeed, children can 
be drawn and kept securely in the right way only by 
the cord of love; and may He who called the little 
ones His own, bless everywhere the teachers and 
members of mission schools, and speed the day when 
the world shall cease to present its contrasts of hovels 
and palaces, or cellars for some and windows that 
look away toward heaven for others ! 



To 

Mrs. Thomas Hastings, 

Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

MEANTIME 

Blind Institute, New York, January, 1849. 

How your dimpled face and laughing eyes come 
smiling back to me to-night, as when in childhood we 
roamed and played together; first, around dear old 
Aldrich Hill, then away west along the banks of the 
river, and last, by the green borders of the lake, 
where we both discovered that we had hearts to lose, 
and that there were others in the world for us to win. 

I see you again, too, blooming and beautiful — ah! 
how beautiful! We parted, sister mine, our bright 
eyes to mingle their loving smiles, alas! nevermore. 
Oh, if I envied you then, how much more might I envy 
you now with all that made life beautiful to me passed 
away, and mine eyes turned inward to gaze hence- 
forth upon little save the faults and foibles of my own 
heart. Still, life is not embittered to me, nor is the 
world altogether a blank. No, no ! I have lived ages 
in the one last little year, and for aught I know, you 
have been doing the same. Hope stars make quick 
revolutions around young hearts. Full often, though, 
while we watch them rise they set. Some sorrows we 
must have, if only for pebbles in the stream of life 
to keep its waters clear. But so dear father is 
hopeful, sweet mother smiles through her tears, and 

157 



158 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

you all at " Stone Cottage " are laughing and glad, 
my morning has still the dews and the flowers, and 
my night at least the star of love. 

Writing you this windy night has coaxed my 
thoughts far back into that beautiful past, almost as 
joyous and hopeful as before. Dear "Williara is no 
more in the grave, and my hazel eyes are radiant 
again in the light of his love. Alas ! though, how bit- 
ter the cup from which I have had to drink, and how 
deep down, too, have I drained its dregs ! Despair has 
no blackness that I have not felt, and dependence no 
bitter that I have not tasted ; but, oh ! to-night how I 
do hope, and what wonders fancy is working before 
my spirit eyes ! Do not be shocked out of your sweet 
senses, but, sister mine, I am positively going to make 
a book. I have the plan of it all in my heart. Within 
these walls I have dreamed and lived it over and over 
a thousand, thousand times. Say not a word to any- 
one, but wait till Christmas rounds once again upon 
the world, and we shall see ! 

Last night in my dream the little book was really 
out, and deciding to make Dr. Samuel Johnson's opin- 
ion of it my criterion for the world, I went to his 
majesty with a copy in my hand. There he sat in 
gown and wig and white cravat, with a great book 
pressed close up to his near-sighted eyes, just as you 
always see him in the front of his works ; but so stern 
and frigid that despite all my efforts to attract his at- 
tention, I could not win from him so much as the turn 
of his head or the wink of an eye ; and finally left him, 
so indignant, that at the door I turned and mocked 
back at him in a way that woke all these nine sleepers 



MEANTIME 159 

around me. Their fright, though, soon changed to 
peals of laughter when I told them that I was only 
mocking old Sam Johnson for refusing to even look 
at that little book of mine that is to be. How ridicu- 
lous ! and not a little ominous, too, you are thinking — 
are you not? Dreams, though, go largely by con- 
traries ; at least I like to think so, since, unlike the old 
poet, I shall have no Boswell to win favor for me, 
or for my book either. Anyway, the darkest of the 
night is the surest harbinger of the morn, since, hav- 
ing done her worst, night can do no more. • 

How courageously dear Lynette is moving on! 
Laura, too, is improving rapidly, as I can see by her 
letters. You should have stayed longer at the Tracy 
Seminary, as you surely would have done had all 
my letters resulted in as much as the one to Mary. 

Besides the editor in R who published it, several 

others who copied it sent me a Twenty or a Ten each, 
to which Mr. Dean added a Twenty for the compli- 
ment in it to him. 

I never cease blaming myself for not accepting the 
Preceptress-ship offered me the evening after my 

valedictory at L with a salary and the privilege 

of two scholars. But I was selfish, doubtless, as well 
as ambitious, and so choked away the " moving of 
the spirit," as father calls it, and went my own way 
until I saw the idol at whose shrine I had thought to 
offer my life's worship lying at my feet shattered 
and broken. Then, while with bowed head I stood 
and mourned, " Night let fall her sable curtain " 
down around my life, and pinned it, alas! with no 
star. 



160 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

It may all come yet, though, only in another way ; 
and meantime yon must pray, yon dear one, as yon did 
long, long ago for " a doll like Litlnie Millerth's." Do 
von remember holding ont vonr little hands and roll- 
ing np yonr sweet eyes, as yon told grandmother, "to 
stlnee if the Lord thends it" J ? Oh! could I but hear 
your lisping voice to-night, how we would talk the 
hours away and swell the minutes into little worlds of 
delight 

TThat has become of that friend of thine with so 
many troublesome esses in his name, and who 
crowned his last visit by - asking consent " 1 Father 
must have been surprised enough to receive a letter 
over a long foreign name asking for me. His reply 
was beautiful. It only made it all the harder, though, 
for me to say no, which after all it seems was only 
half said, as I correspond with the gentleman still, 
and may think better of it when the summer brings 
him back again. For lack of consecutive devotion to 
it. music has failed me — the projected book may fail 
also : then, alas ! for the two dear hands that twice 
saved my life, for I shall think all in heaven point- 
ing to them as my one guide through the shadows the 
rest of the way. 

You asked me once : " Do we ever love the second 
time ? " Whatever my answer was to you then I know 
now that we do. There is such a thing. I am sure, 
- ft wholly intellectual love, and. ah ! how entrancing 
is its reciprocity of kindred thought — how brilliant 
and beautiful the hours are made by it! It is a 
love, though, easily transferred to another of equally 
intellectual charm, however absorbing for the time 



MEANTIME 161 

being. To the soul or heart love, though, no such 
transfer, I believe, ever comes. No, souls are twained 
or twinned born, and for them to meet is to love once 
and always. The mind or intellectual love may be a 
beautiful memory, whereas the heart or soul love is 
a life whose pulsings one never ceases to feel, and 
whose voices one never ceases to hear. They are 
breathings to which the heart turns storehouse, box- 
ing them up like so many strains of music to be 
hearkened to over and over along its lonelier years. 

Come, dearest, say all thy heart out to me now as 
long, long ago ; say what sheds brightness on the past 
and what gives hope to the future. Oh! the angels 
only know how I do long, long to be with you, and 
possibly I may before the flowers around the cottage 
fade and the leaves are falling again. 

Dear father and mother come smiling in upon me 
now, just as I saw them last when we were all to- 
gether there, and they in the midst looking so like 
two happy Israelites just in from the manna fields! 
That was their silver wedding, since when, as Jacob 
says of his Joseph, " One is not." Two have been 
added, though, to their circle; and so, in one way or 
other, Heaven always gives back more than it takes. 
And who knows but ere the golden wedding comes 
we shall not only have the old parlors at Aldrich Hill 
to array the presents and receive the bridal pair in, 
but all that we may have gathered in our wanderings 
beside. Ah! how dear father's eyes always light up 
at any picture like that, as if dreaming yet of some 
time regaining all that he lost. Ere that day, though, 
he and we all may have so outgrown the old hill and 



162 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

its broad slopes as to count it a hardship even to 
pass so much as one winter amid its high winds and 
heavy snows. And what is more, impossible as it now 
seems, climbing still farther and farther away toward 
the beautiful beyond, we may come at last even to 
break thanks upon the dear hand whose signature 
made the home of our childhood the heritage of 
another. 



To 

Miss Sarah Aldrich, 

"Stone Cottage," 

Mum ford, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

IP THOU CANST 

Blind Institute, New York, April, 1849. 

Your letter was a darling little visitor, and my 
heart has had many a sweet chat with its friendly 
words, living o'er and o'er in them the days that I 
passed at your pleasant home, each gliding away like 
a dream of love that may not be told. True, the hours 
were not crowded with joy, but all that souls can 
share we straightway embarked in a little commerce 
of heart, hieing thought to and fro upon the sea of 
feeling until Locke, in all his reasonings, lived not 
half so fast. 

At last spring is waking, and the leaves and buds 
and twigs with new life are swelling, and all nature 
is teeming with very gladness. The little brooks have 
unclasped their icy bands, and gone laughing and 
murmuring away. The lake waters have broken their 
magic fetters, and donning their white caps, are 
again dancing to the tunes the breezes play. The 
little seeds in the warm earth are yearning and beat- 
ing and struggling upward to the world of lights and 
showers, even as our poor hearts should be longing 
for the smile of Him whose look makes the light of 
heaven; and panting no less for the waters whose 
streams flow fast by the Throne of God. 

163 



164 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

The world I live in is an ideal world, its inhabi- 
tants are beings of fancy and, of course, sinless and 
good. Their lips speak no lies and their hands work 
no evil; their smiles are the beams of the morning, 
and their whispers, like the night-breeze among the 
flowers, soft and healing as the breath of prayer. 
But, oh! this morning my imprisoned soul would go 
into raptures for one glance at this world of light. 
Ah! yes, I would bow in grateful adoration for so 
much as the fragment beam that plays idly on an in- 
fant's tear, or sports with a drop of dew. 

0, holy light ! thou art old as the look of God, and 
eternal as God. The archangels were rocked in thy 
lap, and their infant smiles were brightened by thee. 
Creation is in thy memory. By thy torch the Throne 
of Jehovah was set, and thy hand burnished the 
myriad stars that glitter in His crown. Worlds, new 
from His omnipotent hand, were sprinkled with 
beams from thy baptismal font. At thy golden urn 
pale Luna comes to fill her silver horn, Saturn bathes 
his sky-girt rings, Jupiter lights his waning moons, 
and Venus dips her queenly robes anew. Thy foun- 
tains are shoreless as the ocean of heavenly love ; thy 
centre is everywhere, and thy boundary no power 
has marked. Thy beams gild the illimitable fields of 
space and gladden the farthest verge of the universe. 
The glories of the seventh heaven are open to thy 
gaze, and thy glare is felt in the woes of lowest 
Erebus. The sealed books of heaven by thee are 
read, and thine eye, like the Infinite, canst pierce the 
dark veil of the future and glance backward through 
the mystic cycles of the past. Thy touch gives the 



IF THOU CANST 165 

lily its whiteness, the rose its tint, and thy kindling 
ray makes the diamond's light. Thy beams are 
mighty as the power that binds the spheres. Thou 
canst change the sleety winds to soothing zephyrs, 
and thou canst melt the icy mountains of the poles 
to gentle rains and dewy vapors. The granite rocks 
of the hills are upturned by thee, volcanoes burst, 
islands sink and rise, rivers roll, and oceans swell 
at thy look of command. And, oh ! thou monarch of 
the skies, bend now thy bow of millioned arrows and 
pierce, if thou canst, this darkness that thrice twelve 
moons has bound me. Burst now thine emerald gates, 
morn, and let thy dawning come! Mine eyes roll 
in vain to find thee, and my soul is weary of this 
interminable gloom. The past comes back robed in 
a pall which makes all things dark. The future, like 
the present, blotted out. My heart is but the tomb of 
blighted hopes, and all the misery of feelings unem- 
ployed has settled on me. I am misfortune's child, 
and sorrow long since marked me for her own. 

Yet the world does not always deal gently, even 
with one so sorrowed, but breaks its rude storms 
upon the bowed and the uplifted head all the same. 
Alas ! it does not know that the sea of feeling, how- 
ever calm, may be rippled by a breath, swollen by a 
word, clouded by a look, and lashed into fury by an 
act. Heaven, though, is just; and love like thine is 
slow to censure, doubts never, and believes not, till 
evidence look her so full in the face that there be no 
room for mistake; and even then she rather pities 
than blames, rather forgives than condemns, and lets 
compassion cover the faults that charity cannot hide. 



166 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

Ah ! when will mortals learn that the holiest thing 
out of heaven is that love which is most happy itself 
when most living to the happiness of others? The 
last time Eve wandered through Eden's bowers of 
celestial amaranth, the angels, betokening her de- 
parture, gave her many flowers, which she twined in 
her hair and wore on her neck, all save one, a love 
blossom, which she pressed to her breast; the ap- 
proving smile of all the angels quickened its fainting 
leaves into life ; it took root in her heart ; and so down 
out of Paradise, with beautiful Eve, came the world's 
one relic of heaven, the blossom of love ! 



To 

Mrs. Geo. W. Fisher, 

Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

THE FIRST STEP WAS TAKEN 

Blind Institute, New York, May, 1849. 

Whoever dreamed that so many obstacles could 
arise in the way of publishing a little book ! Why ! I 
thought one would only have to send the manuscript 
to a publisher, and then wait a little to have it all out 
lovely. But, lo ! the first announcement was that, 
having no name as an author, no publisher would en- 
gage to bring out my work without being secured for 
at least half of the first edition; or, if stereotyped, 
paid for page by page. Then the engravings would 
have to be paid for half in advance, the manuscript 
copied by a professional, the proof read, etc.; then 
all the copies I should order, paid for down — all of 
which together, you see, would cost quite a sum, and 
I could see no way out but by soliciting subscribers 
enough in New York to cover the amount called for. 

Still, the way was not all clear to that, even. 
Coming to the institution, introduced to Mr. Dean, 
one of the Directors, by his old and much-prized 
friend, he has seemed to me always a sort of guar- 
dian — as, indeed, he has been. Besides, his years, 
his wisdom, and his position give his opinions the 
weight of oracles hard to gainsay. Imagine my dis- 
may then, when, after hearing me all through, even to 

167 



168 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

my faith in help from the Unseen, he pronounced the 
whole thing a certain failure, and declined to so much 
as head the list for me. 

" Why ! " he said, " my friend Bryant here, with all 
his fame, could hardly get subscribers enough in New 
York to bring out a book; and much less a stranger 
like you, my child." Just imagine it, Mrs. Nott. The 
struggles, though, that it afterward cost me to waive 
this noble friend's opinion and the possible criticism 
of everyone else — that you never can know. Besides, 
while the world is great, looking at it through these 
veiled eyes of mine my heart turned bad spy and re- 
ported it ten thousand times more formidable than 
it really is, magnifying the amazed look of boys on 
the street, even, to a horror too fearful to endure. 
Still, before me lay either life-long dependence or this 
one great effort; and pricked on by necessity, all 
unconsciously to myself, I was being every day and 
every hour drawn into closer and closer contact with 
the very world that I was so dreading. 

Mrs. Buckley, Mr. Dean's daughter, was not only 
reared in luxury, but has been all her life accustomed 
to New York's best society ; and my first cross was to 
confide to her the little peep that I had dared to take 
through the clouds, laying special stress upon the ob- 
jections her father had raised ; to which her reply was 
so characteristic that you can almost see her noble 
self in it: 

"Men never can see the angels," she said, " until 
they have left them, nor hear them, either, until they 
have ceased calling " ; and like a good angel herself, 
gave me every possible encouragement. 



THE FIRST STEP WAS TAKEN 169 

So, after praying over it by night and by day, and 
baptizing it a thousand times over with my tears, I 
finally wrote the little prospectus and got the super- 
intendent to have a dozen copies of it printed on the 
inside of the covers to a set of blanks, lined and fig- 
ured for names; and when the Board of Managers 
met again, I persuaded him to go with me up to their 
room and present me to them. He did so, and as I 
suggested, reminded them that I came there intro- 
duced by Senator Backus, of Eochester. Then I 
gathered courage and stated to the venerable body 
that abandoning all idea of ever becoming self- 
sustaining through music, I had decided to publish 
a volume of my letters as a future means of serving 
myself ; and I had taken the liberty of waiting upon 
them first, hoping that it would be their pleasure to 
sanction my little enterprise by giving their names to 
it. Mr. Anson G. Phelps, the president, was absent, 
but the president pro tern, very chivalrously arose, 
took the little prospectus from my hand, and laid it 
before the secretary to read; after which he said to 
me very kindly: 

" Excuse us, please, madam, and we will act upon 
this in your absence before we adjourn." 

The first step now was taken. I had commenced 
and there was no turning back; and during the in- 
terim of waiting I paced the upper corridor in such 
agitation as you cannot imagine. At length the good 
Quaker Director, John Wood, came hurrying up to 
me like one covered all over with smiles, saying : 

" Ah ! thee did well to come in and do as thee did. 
See, thee has twenty-four dollars subscribed already, 



170 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

with the names all written down here and marked 
paid ; and if thee will let me keep this little prospectus 
until the Board meet again, thee shall have an hundred 
more names on it for thy little book that is to be." 
I could have embalmed him with gratitude, but, you 
see, I had intended the names of the Directors as a 
sort of commendatory introduction for myself. How- 
ever, I let him do as he wished, and after a few days, 
waiting and wondering what to do next, I made an- 
other commencement. Mrs. Buckley went with me 
and we called upon a dozen or more of the ministers 
of the city. She having known Bishop Onderdonk 
from a child, we went to him first ; and how beautiful 
and benign he was. He said: 

" I have written my name for one copy, and I wish 
it were for one hundred." So we went on all day, 
and everyone was just so pleasant and kind. Doctor 
Berrian, especially, and Professor Anthon expressed 
great interest, and spoke of many others who, they 
were sure, would be most happy to subscribe for 
copies. In the afternoon we called at " 70 Prince 
Street," the office of Mr. William B. Astor, long years 
a friend of Mr. Dean's. He read the little prospectus 
and subscribed for a single copy like the rest, smiling 
as he did so, saying : 

" I do not often subscribe for books, but I think I 
will for this." Returning, I was congratulating my- 
self on what a nice commencement I had again of so 
many well-known and distinguished names ; but my 
Geneva friend, Mr. Stevens, from the Theological 
Seminary, had called and he insisted upon taking it 
home with him. Being headed by the Bishop, and 



THE FIRST STEP WAS TAKEN 171 

so many of the clergy, he was positive of adding 
largely to it among the officers and students of the 
college ; which left me again, you see, without a single 
name to commence with. The next morning, though, 
with a new clean copy of the printed prospectus, and 
a sweet little girl who lives near the institution for 
an attendant, I walked away to one of the finest 
streets of the city and waited upon the ladies all that 
day, but only obtained three subscribers — one of them 
a dear French lady, and one a sweet Quakeress whose 
home seemed like a little nook of Eden that might 
have escaped " the fall," and herself the one angel 
in it. But some way I was not at all disheartened. 
My little guide, Bessie, came again the next morning, 
and I took another clean, new little book and rode 
down to the City Hall, determined, if I could gain 
sufficient courage, to wait upon his Honor the Mayor 
first, The man in the office told us that the Mayor 
was at his house yet; and so we walked away there 
through the sun, only to learn that he had just left 
for his office. We retraced our steps and climbed the 
long stairs again, but still he had not arrived. We 
went into an inner office to wait. An hour passed, 
and then he came ; and with his first pompous word 
froze me nearly to death. Indeed, I could almost feel 
Bessie shudder. He asked my errand, and I ex- 
plained it to him in the fewest words possible, ask- 
ing him timidly to please read the little prospectus 
and then he would understand it all. But he only said 
gruffly : 

" I know nothing about it and do not wish to know 
anything about it. A lady from Boston deceived me 



172 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

last week, and I have resolved hereafter to know noth- 
ing and attend to nothing here but office business," 
waving his hand to Bessie toward the anteroom ; but 
seeing it literally jammed with men waiting, Bessie 
looked imploringly toward the private door by which 
he had entered. " Yes," he said, " go out that way 
if you choose," and turned away. So we left him, so 
stunned that neither of us had heart to speak until 
we reached the park gate. But when it closed heavily 
behind us, I began to reflect and say to myself: He 
is only one man after all, and I have turned back 
at the first refusal. Then a voice in my heart re- 
proached me for my little faith and lack of courage, 
and I said to Bessie: 

" Come, let us go back ; there are a great many 
more offices there, and because the Mayor was so 
gruff and unkind, that is no sign the rest will be." 

" Oh, no," Bessie said, " I would not go into that 
building again for all the world! He might see us; 
but that great round building yonder is full of offices. 
I went there once with mamma to see about her taxes ; 
we might go there." 

So we took heart again, and entering the lower hall 
Bessie whispered : 

" There are doors all along here ; where shall we 
go in! " 

" No matter, no matter," I said ; " the first name 
you see." But all the time I was praying the Lord 
to direct, and the angels to be with us. Bessie spelled 
out over one door : 

" Thompson, Street Commissioner." 

" That is right," I whispered, and we opened the 



THE FIRST STEP WAS TAKEN 173 

door. The office was full of men, and we were about 
stepping back, but — 

" Come in, ladies ; come in, ladies," called Mr. 
Thompson ; " come in. I shall be ready to wait upon 
you in a moment," and the men moved back to give 
us seats. Everything now, it seemed, depended upon 
a word. Men went out and came in, went out and 
came in, and every slam of the door seemed a death 
knell to my soul; and how I prayed, only One in 
heaven can ever know. At length a gentleman put his 
head into the door and called out: 

" Hurry, Thompson, hurry up or you will be left 
by the cars ! The carriage has been waiting for you 
this half hour." Mr. Thompson looked at his watch 
and said: 

" Never mind ; you go on. I will be there in time." 

They went on coming in and going out, until sud- 
denly it was still ; the last one seemed to have left. 

" Now, my dear lady," said Mr. Thompson, half 
coaxingly, "what can I do for you?" I arose and 
said to him : 

" Please excuse me, sir, but you have an engage- 
ment and I fear to detain you." 

" Never mind, never mind," he said, looking at his 
watch again ; " ten minutes more. Time enough to do 
business with all the ladies in New York! What is 
it? " Tears came to my eyes and I handed him the 
little prospectus. He ran his eyes down over the 
printed page inside of the cover, and looking up into 
my face, said : 

" Did you write this? " 

" I did," I answered. 



174 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

" That is enough," he said. Then, turning over the 
blank leaves, he exclaimed : 

" What ! and am I the first to give my name to this 
beautiful little enterprise — the first you have waited 
upon! " Forgetting all before, and thinking only of 
the gruff ness of the Mayor: 

" The first gentleman," I said. 

" But who sent you to me? " 

" No one," I replied, " unless the Lord did." 

" And no letters, no commendations, no noth- 
ing?" 

" No," I said ; " I never thought I should need any." 

" No, and you do not need them," he continued, 
seemingly talking more to himself than to me. " Such 
confidence in the goodness of mankind is better than 
all the commendations in the world." Then, having 
run his eyes down again over the little prospectus: 
" How strange ! " he exclaimed, taking up his pen to 
write. " Why ! do you know, I was the architect of 
that institution, and be assured I head this unique 
enterprise this morning with more pride and pleas- 
ure than I ever did anything in all my life, and I only 
wish, too, it was for one thousand copies instead of 
one; but there is my name for one copy, and there 
is the money for it," he said, handing it to Bessie, 
" for I see," he said, smiling, " you are going to make 
them all pay in advance. Well, that is right," ris- 
ing, drawing on his gloves, and putting on his hat; 
" and we are to look for the little book Christmas ! 
Yes, and now I think of it," he added, pausing at the 
door, " all these young gentlemen here will want one 
too, who have nothing else to do with their money; 



THE FIRST STEP WAS TAKEN 175 

and you must see, little Miss, that they all subscribe, 
everyone ; " and so he hurried away. 

But the door had hardly closed after him when a 
gentleman stepped out from behind one of the desks, 
took up the little prospectus and read it, and then 
wrote his name, " Alderman Hart," for five copies, 
marked it paid, gave Bessie the five dollars without 
saying a word, and passed out. Then one of the 
young gentlemen came down from his high desk and 
wrote his name for a copy, and gave Bessie the 
money; and then another, and another, and another, 
until they had all read the prospectus and subscribed, 
and Bessie began to be troubled to crowd the new bills 
into the purse. Bless the Lord ! praise the Lord ! was 
in all my thoughts ; and when we arose to leave, my 
full heart had scarcely more than tears to thank them 
with. Bessie, the dear child, was overjoyed, and be- 
gan to whisper before we were hardly out: 

" Oh, you should just feel this purse once ! Oh, my ! 
you can publish the little book now right away — you 
can, indeed you can, you can ; just see ! " and went on 
telling how soon I should have a home and every- 
thing, until the first I knew we were at the park gate 
again; where, holding a brief consultation, I pro- 
posed to Bessie to return and call at the other offices 
in the building, which she was very willing to do this 
time ; and hardly a gentleman refused. 

Indeed, dear Mrs. Nott, now ten days have passed, 
and it seems almost as though the angels had laid 
down their harps in heaven, and come down to help 
on about the little book. Broadway has been one 
long row of smiles, and it is difficult to say whether 



176 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

foreigners or Americans have been the most kind and 
polite; and far down toward the Battery, in a dear 
old-fashioned place, three ladies subscribed for five 
copies each. 

I had no idea of going into Wall Street, and Bessie 
was afraid to go there too ; but we came out of one 
building the wrong way, and were going along there 
before we knew it. The second or third place a gen- 
tleman read the little prospectus and looked over the 
names, and then said to me very pleasantly: 

" I have written my name here for one copy, but I 
am a very rich man and you must please let me set 
my own price upon your little book that is to be ; " 
and he put into my hand a gold Five. When we came 
out, Bessie, looking at his name, discovered that we 
were in Wall Street instead of Broadway. However, 
we decided to keep on, and, dear Mrs. Nott, I can 
never tell you the half. Presidents of banks, brokers, 
lawyers, and all, seemed to know all about it before 
we came. And Bessie, after a little, said : 

" Why ! isn't it the drollest thing! They just smile 
when we come in, and hold out their hands for the 
little prospectus before we say a word to them." And 
so it was ever so far, until finally, at the end of a 
block, the gentleman who gave me the gold piece came 
up and said: 

" Let me look again at your list of names, please ; " 
and I exclaimed: 

" Oh ! I understand it now ! You are the good angel 
who has been troubling the waters for us all the way 
along." Laughing, he replied: " I am glad if I have 
done you any good, and I think by the names here I 



THE FIRST STEP WAS TAKEN 177 

have helped you along a little ; " and before I could 
half thank him he passed away. 

Right after that we came to " 64 Wall Street " ; 
and when we had been all through, and everyone in 
the building had subscribed, we passed Mr. Dean's 
office ; and do you believe it, I had not the courage to 
go in. Half-way down the stairs, though, I decided 
that it was hardly polite, and turned back. Mr. Dean 
was sitting in his arm-chair, but was quick on his 
feet, and his cordial reception as quickly banished all 
fear of any blame that I had not listened to him. 

" Come," he said, before we were hardly seated ; 
" am I not to see that little prospectus that I have 
been hearing so much about? Every friend I have 
met the last fortnight has saluted me with: 

" ' Why ! how is it, Dean, that your name is not on 
the lists for that little institution book that is to come 
out up there? ' " Bessie gave him the prospectus, and 
looking over all the names : 

" Well ! " he exclaimed ; " never in all my life have I 
seen anything so surprising; and now you must let 
me ask the privilege of putting my name in here with 
the rest." Coming away, he said to me at the door: 

" I shall never doubt your angels again, my child, 
and I only pray that they may direct and help you 
thus always ! " 

You see, though, dear Mrs. Nott, it is nothing less 
than the fifth scene of the foreshadowing, that I de- 
scribed to you up there by the bay, the scene when at 
last the darkness itself began to take on a shape of 
its own and rise up before me, an overawing, thou- 
sand-eyed presence, as I told you, that filled me with 



178 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

an indescribable fear — the scene that has always 
looked so impossible ever to be translated into real 
life; and yet how surely right here in New York 
have I not only faced the dark old presence itself, 
but realized every shudder of fear that it caused me, 
endured or lived over and over its every shadow of 
dread, which goes to guarantee the following of the 
next scene, does it not, and the next, and the next, 
even to the last and the light again! 

Would for your sake, dear Mrs. Nott, my letter 
were more brief. With a line less, though, it would 
hardly answer your kind request to know all about 
the progress of the little book, that with your per- 
mission I fain would give myself the pleasure of 
dedicating to you. Please say if the wee volume may 
be so honored — while with a thousand thanks for your 
last sweet favor, with much high regard to the good 
Doctor, and all love to your dear self, 

Faithfully, 



To 

Mrs. Dr. Nott, 

Union College, 

Schenectady, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

AIRY CASTLES 

Blind Institute, New York, June, 1849. 

How sweet to talk when the heart is full, and what 
a privilege to write when pent-up thoughts, like caged 
birds, flap their wings to be free ! 

That dream of music with its organ-piping is at 
an end ; and in place of a " lone mourner of its baffled 
zeal," my heart is full of something more altogether 
soul-engaging to do. Forsake is not the word. 
Rather say that I have folded up the past with its 
dreams and laid it away, as one does white satins 
when going about rough work. Memory, though, is 
too faithful to the heart ever to allow the sunshine of 
the past to grow one ray less, or suffer one face, even, 
to fade from its view. No ; sooner the springs of the 
green earth dry up and the flowers around them cease 
to blossom than the smile of Eliza Hamilton cease to 
gladden my thoughts, or my heart drift so far away 
from her that its pulsings no longer disturb the 
fancies of her dreams. Lingering there by the stile 
at the old seminary, repeating over and over our last 
fond adieu, who could have believed that in such a 
little time you would be half a world away, and I 
writing you there from the New York Institute for the 
Blind ; myself not only an inmate, but a sort of cen- 

179 



180 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

tral figure, pointed at by visitors in every hour of the 
day as the one whose strange mutation of fortune it 
was to pass from girlhood to wifehood, widowhood, 
and blindness, all within the brief space of a single 
month. Then hearken to their marvels and thought- 
less comments : 

" Cried her eyes out, they say. How strange ! She 
don't look blind, though. And what lovely hair she 
has ! I wonder who dresses it for her." Again : 

" What a beautiful complexion, and so tall and 
splendid looking! What a pity! what a pity! How 
becoming black is to her ! I wonder if she knows it 
and is going to wear it always." Quite like belonging 
to a menagerie, you see; and Eliza, you will not be 
surprised when I tell you that night-time, daytime, 
and all the time I have been praying those who watch 
in heaven to unbar these heavy doors and let me go 
hence. 

In my first from New York after having experi- 
mented some five months with Water-Cure for these 
eyes of mine, I told you of a plan I had projected 
upon the plane of the future that looked beyond these 
walls again ere the roses should take on their bloom ; 
and lo ! this is it : I am giving all the days now to 
soliciting subscribers for a little book of mine that 
is to be, the name to which — and there is much in a 
name — I have quite decided to take from the old-time 
song, " A Place in Thy Memory, Dearest," only omit- 
ting the dearest as the part rhetoric requires left to 
be understood. If Plato said rightly, " The begin- 
ning is half of the whole," my little book, having both 
a name and a beginning, should be at least enough 



AIRY CASTLES 181 

to found hope upon ; and ah ! if there were only some 
congealing or petrifying process by which the airy 
castles I build from it could be preserved, my clouds 
were so illumined as to be scarcely known from the 
stars. One thing, though, my strange undertaking 
has brought about already: that is, another scene 
foreshadowed in the vision, which only Time has been 
seer enough to interpret. But now how plain to see 
that the scene wherein the darkness began to take on 
an overawing shape and rise up before me meant 
nothing less than the world itself, just as I have 
found it in this great, overwhelming, thousand-eyed 
New York ; and that other phase, myself being drawn 
into closer and closer contact with it, the getting sub- 
scribers here for that little book of mine that is to be. 

But as Raphael would not leave an ugly picture on 
canvas, so a delicate mind never says or writes what 
is not pleasing ; and better I entertain you with some- 
thing at least less ghostly than the fifth scene of a 
vision, or less painful than the suffocating dread I 
have realized in living it through. 

This morning dawned as all the mornings were 
wont to dawn in the beautiful long ago. Soon, though, 
the skies were full of rain ; and unable to go out, and 
tired at last of thinking, thinking, I rushed down to 
the parlor and set to drumming a piano lesson as if 
my life depended upon it ; then, quitting that, I sang 
dolefully enough, " The Light of Other Days Has 
Faded," which was hardly ended when the kindliest, 
gentlest hand in the world was resting on my shoul- 
der, and these words were rather melted than spoken 
into my ear: 



182 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

" Excuse me, but I think I saw you and was intro- 
duced to you at the Lima Seminary five years ago, 
was I not?" 

Some voices we never forget, and especially the 
voice of an Indian with all the sea-shell roar of his 
native forests still echoing in it. I knew him at once. 

" Why, this is Chief of the Ojibeways ! " I ex- 
claimed, rising and giving him my hand. 

" So," he replied. " When you saw me in Lima I 
was on my way to England to finish my education 
there ; and now returning, before going to my people, 
I wish to seek all the knowledge I can of the institu- 
tions of the country, and hence my visit here. But 
how comes it about that I find you here? " he asked. 
" You have not lost your sight, I hope? " Being an- 
swered in the affirmative, he said sadly: 

" I feared as much, seeing that you entered and 
passed so near without observing me. You went 
straight to the piano, though, and but for your hav- 
ing no music before you, I should still have thought 
myself mistaken. Pray, how is it — how was it? " he 
was eagerly asking, still retaining my hand in his, 
when the door opened and the superintendent with 
several of the directors entered, and as you can 
imagine, I was only too glad to be excused, and 
slipped away. Soon after, the chapel bell rang, and 
the whole house of nearly two hundred quickly as- 
sembled. 

The great Chief was introduced ; then Miss Cynthia 
arose, and in her sweet voice welcomed him with a 
poem which she had prepared, knowing of his com- 
ing, opening with : 



AIRY CASTLES 183 

"Oh ! welcome, thou stranger; our hearts' warm emotions 
Are clustering 'round thee, thou Chief of the brave," 

etc., to which the Chief replied in a manner so beau- 
tiful and so affecting, that I could give you no con- 
ception of his words but for the speech he made 
us at Lima Rve summers ago, when his gestures, 
you remember, were more like the rise and fall of a 
dove's wing sailing the air than the waves of a natural 
hand. He was an orator then ; and how we marvelled 
at his grace, when as yet he had only studied beneath 
the broad canopy of the sky, gathered his imagery 
amid the cloud-capped mountains of the west, and 
fashioned the tide of his eloquence where mighty 
rivers in their turbid grandeur roll. But, oh! Eliza, 
you should have heard him now after five years' col- 
lege life and travel ; when, with all the fullness of his 
rich Indian accent still warming in his words, he rose 
and exclaimed : 

" ' Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh ' ; and returning to this, my native land, and 
overlooking once more its thriving cities, garden 
scenes, and growing fields, my aching heart asks at 
every turn: What have my people received in ex- 
change for all this ! Looking on your proud institu- 
tions, too, I ask again : Upon whose grounds do they 
rest? Where were dug the stones from which they 
are piled, and from whose forests were the timbers 
hewed ? 

" The Indian has done evil, but, ah ! my friends, has 
he not sometimes done good? Who welcomed your 
fathers from the sea, and whose wigwams hid them 
from the storm, their enemies, and beasts of the 



184 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

wood! Who smoked with them the pipe of peace, 
and showed them lakes and streams, running like sil- 
ver currents upon the bosom of the earth ? And when 
their French foes came down from the North with 
battle-axe and spear, who, like the Chief of the Mo- 
hawks, harangued his braves, bared his own breast, 
and nobly fell in their defence? 

" But, ah ! I say again : What have the pale-faces 
given in exchange for all this % They have taught our 
lips to thirst for fire-water instead of our mountain 
springs ; our bows and arrows, too, we have laid down 
for the white man's thunder-sticks ; and no more can 
we follow the buffalo in chase or vie with the fleet- 
footed deer, hasten the fox to his hole, or face the 
wolf in his den. Alas ! no ; the white man has stolen 
away our heritage of strength, and given us in return 
only the means of weakness ; afflicting us with the 
vices of civilization, while transporting by the ship- 
load its benefits to the far less virtuous, if not less 
attractive, heathen of other lands. So, dwindled in 
numbers, driven to climes uncongenial, and forced to 
take shelter beneath forests uninviting, the Indian is 
weary, his spirits fail him, his heart grows sick and 
dies within him, even as all over this broad and 
mighty land his lodge-fires have gone out forever. 

" Verily, our wrongs do rise to heaven ; and because 
we have sometimes lifted our arms in self-defence, 
the white man would fain make the world believe the 
Indian all of savage mould. But let the highly sig- 
nificant names he left upon his lakes and rivers an- 
swer for his perceptions of the beautiful. Tell me, 
what people, speaking a language expressing every 



AIRY CASTLES 185 

shade of thought, could have conceived a more fitting 
appellation for the placid waters of a lake than Win- 
nipiseogee, The smile of Him who made it? By the 
light of his own unassisted reason, too, the Indian 
knows and feels that there is a God whom he igno- 
rantly, but reverently, worships. He marks His fierce 
wrath in the whirlwind and hears His anger in the 
thunder's roar. He sees His displeasure in the wan- 
ing of the moon, and feels His love in the warm light 
of the sun ; and savage though he be, the Indian is no 
hypocrite while he bends his knee and lifts his heart 
adoringly to the Great Spirit enthroned in the far-ofT 
Happy Hunting Ground. 

" True, my friends, your veiled eyes see not the 
light of yonder sun, while my people do indeed look 
on his glories and dance with delight when he comes 
up from the waves ; but, oh ! let me tell you, each and 
every one, that a far brighter light is shining in upon 
your minds here to-day. You have the Bible, and you 
have learned of God and the Saviour; you have a 
heaven all shining with love to look forward to ; and 
I hope when the shades of night have fallen on the 
world and the angels are leaning over you listening 
to your whispered prayers, you will not forget the 
children of the forest; and may the morning soon 
break when the blessings which you so richly enjoy 
will fall upon them like showers of raindrops upon 
wilting flowers." 



To 

Miss Eliza Hamilton, 

Galena, IlL 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

EVEE SO LITTLE 

Blind Institute, New York, June, 1849. 

It is Saturday, teachers' holiday, and Sibyl is as 
usual with her mother. Mr. Stevens from the Theo- 
logical Seminary called this afternoon to favor Miss 
Cynthia and me with some reading sent us by the 
president, the Rev. Dr. Turner, and the last two hours 
we have been listening in raptures to the beautiful 
poem, " Oberon," a translation from the German of 
Wieland; and when he came to where Huon and 
Rizzia had crossed the fearful mountain and landed 
safe in the hermit's vale, I engaged my friend's hand 
wherewith to write you. 

Dearest Marion, as you know, I left Rochester for 
this Blind Institute, thinking ere long to become an 
organist. Arriving, not many days had elapsed when 
the good Professor who heads the musical depart- 
ment sent for me to his lesson-room; and after 
investigating my capacities for music — time, tune, ex- 
pression, imagery, etc., as though to become a musi- 
cian one must necessarily be a painter and a poet also 
— he chalked off for me seven years of hard practice. 
Seven years ! the exact time that I was toiling for an 
education, alternating between scholar and teacher. 
Still, since any number of added years had been prom- 

186 



EVER SO LITTLE 187 

ised to follow the one accorded to me here, I did not 
falter so much at the time as at the immensity of the 
undertaking, and all without the eyes. But stopping 
only for a thought the Professor continued: 

" Art is long, my child, but in seven years you shall 
be able to play in Trinity, or St. Paul's of London, if 
you will ; while in half that time, with close practice, 
you might play for any ordinary church." Then 
something of the pride or the courage of my seeing 
days came back to me, and I said : 

" No, Professor, better the seven years, as one 
should never be content to do anything less than well 
when well is possible." 

" Exactly ! " he replied. And for my first lesson 
I commenced the seventy- two positions of the key- 
board, gliding out of one key into another by those 
magic sevenths — looking, you see, to modulation and 
transposition, the weaving of one's own preludes, in- 
terludes, or voluntaries, and the like. 

But while compelling myself to the most arduous 
practice, my every thought has been alert for some 
way out of this institution with more or better prom- 
ise than playing myself out; and recently I have set 
my hand to a little work, a book even, if you believe 
it, which some hundreds of New York's best have al- 
ready subscribed for ; and am I presuming too much 
upon your disinterestedness, Marion, when I per- 
suade myself that you, too, will be delighted to set it 
forward just ever so little ! The influence of the good 
is always desirable, and especially so in an under- 
taking where success is in the least doubtful. Very 
many of those whom you call friends have been 



188 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

friends to me also; and hoping that you will be 
pleased to gather among them a few subscribers for 
the volume I am about to publish, I send you the 
accompanying little prospectus. If in your heart it 
meet with a cordial reception, some names must grace 
its pages. 

Remember me, please, to my very kind friends, Mr. 
and Mrs. Lyon; and dear Mrs. Burr, my darling 
Lizzie, who first walked with me to church ; and sweet 
Mary, too, who led me first among the flowers, and 
I called her afterward Teary, the Hebrew of Mary, 
because she wept with me. Kiss them both when you 
meet them, please, and crown all the other joys they 
have with the light of your smile. And dear Carrie 
Hastings, too, who once returned a rich veil that she 
might take in its place a present for me — tell her that 
the angels have written that love-deed in the books 
they keep, and from all storms and clouds I pray them 
to hide her forever beneath their wings. 

My heart grieves always for poor, dear Frankie 
Ball, sleeping with her baby by her side among the 
birds and the flowers ; and it will be beautiful to tell 
her in heaven that I know now how, the morning 
after Christmas, she went flying back to the jeweller's 
with her watch and chain, that she might bring the 
money to the stranger who had fallen in the city all 
dark and alone by the cold grave in her heart. Oh ! 
only the angels themselves can love us so ! 

Please speak of me, too, to dear Mrs. Saxton and 
her daughters. Miss Lottie has a note or two which 
she will perhaps let me give a place in the little book 
that is to be. And please remember me also with 



EVER SO LITTLE 189 

much love to Mrs. Butts, Mrs. Buchan, and Mrs. 
Henry Rochester, to all of whom I am indebted for 
much sweet kindness. 

Alas ! how they err who call friendship but a name. 
Dear, noble Rochester is full of friends, and though 
far away, and I get tidings from them but seldom, 
still, like the pyramids, I know tkey are tkere and 
unckanged. Many, tkougk, make friends witk you to- 
day, and to-morrow witkdraw tkeir favor. Perckance 
you kave uttered a sentiment or taken a liberty tbat 
does not accord precisely witk tkeir views; or some 
others have expressed opinions derogatory to your 
worth, and behold ! they are gone. Still, there is little 
room to censure them, for love in all hearts is not 
perennial; and when the sun has ceased to shine 
warmly upon it, nothing is more natural than it 
should die, as the leaves wither and fall when storms 
pelt upon the trees. 



To 

Miss Marion MacGregor, 

Rochester, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

YET MANY MOEE 

Schenectady, N. Y., June, 1849. 

Since all the Fine Arts claim you for their special 
friend, Mr. Dean, and the whole race of sciences 
aspires at least to the honor of your acquaintance, 
how fitting that I come to write you from this, the 
finest seat of learning in our State ; and think of you, 
too, while sitting here at the feet of one greater than 
a Gamaliel with his college turrets towering above 
and around him. 

Yesterday the Rev. Dr. Nott, forty-five years presi- 
dent of this college, passed his seventy-sixth birth- 
day hearing his classes as usual, attending to all the 
calls of his students, and listening to and correcting 
their rhetorical exercises, preparatory to the coming 
C ommencement . 

In the morning, while looking over the papers 
aloud, as he calls it, thereby to give me the benefit of 
his gleanings also, a committee of the senior class 
waited upon him, desiring permission to have a gen- 
eral college celebration of his birthday. At this the 
good sage seemed much surprised, and asked: 

" How in the world did you know that! Really, I 
did not know it myself ; but if it be so, boys, that I 
am verily one year older, and you wish to celebrate 

190 



YET MANY MORE 191 

it, as you say, you must do it in the way I am going 
to — work with all your might ! " 

" But/' said they, " we would like to illuminate the 
college." 

" Illuminate the college ! " exclaimed he. " Why ! 
what an idea; such a thing was never done." 

" Why, yes," said the students ; " the first year you 
came here it was illuminated." 

" Not quite," replied the Doctor ; " for if I remem- 
ber rightly, we had no college to illuminate." 

" But," said they, " they hung the lamps in the 
trees, which meant the same thing." 

So the conference went on, and at last terminated 
by the Doctor's consenting to let the senior class come 
to his house in the evening for an informal levee, 
specifying, however, that they should all go home pre- 
cisely at ten o'clock. 

During the day, many old and tried friends called 
to offer their congratulations that another year had 
been added to his long and useful life, and left hoping 
that he would be spared to them yet many more. 
Many presents were sent in, also, of fruits, bouquets, 
etc. A political friend sent, by express, a full-length 
engraving of himself, elegantly framed; and while 
dear Mrs. Nott and a grandson, Mr. Howard Potter, 
were selecting the most appropriate place for hanging 
it, the Doctor, lifting up his eyes from his papers, ex- 
claimed in his piquant way : 

" I have it ! Hang him in the college library, 
where he should have been himself long ago ! " 

The professors and their ladies, the tutors and 
other officers of the college were present at the party ; 



192 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

and altogether the evening was one of rare profit and 
pleasure. The Doctor was in fine spirits, entertain- 
ing the groups that thronged about him with vivid 
delineations of the master spirits of the last genera- 
tion, with most of whom he has been intimate. Some- 
one asked him whether he thought Hamilton or Web- 
ster the greater man. He replied: 

" Hamilton, for Webster has lived to do much since 
Hamilton died; and besides, the greatest efforts of 
Hamilton have never been published." 

Doctor Nott is naturally eloquent; you feel it as 
much in his common conversation as in his sermons 
and writings. Indeed, eloquence is a part of him; 
and while his words may not be so select as his man- 
ner is impressive, one cannot listen to him without 
being persuaded. The best feature in the evening's 
entertainment was his paternal address to the whole 
assembly, in which he dwelt with great emphasis 
upon the fact that men do not live out half their days 
in consequence of infractions upon the physical laws 
of their being. He said : 

" One-fifth of the human race die before they are 
twelve months old, one-third before they are two 
years old, and one-half before they are twenty, while 
nothing analogous to it is found among other ani- 
mals. All other species live," he said, " with but few 
exceptions, to a certain and uniform age. Whence 
then this mortality among men? The truth is, young 
gentlemen, the only animal endowed with reason and 
the higher attributes is almost the only animal that 
outrages the plain and obvious laws of his being." 
Then by way of illustration, he remarked upon his 



YET MANY MORE 193 

own plain mode of living, his constant nse of cold 
baths, and his abstaining from all stimulants, both in 
food and drink. 

" Life," he said, " is the most precious of Heaven's 
gifts, and I have no doubt that all before me would 
like to extend it to the greatest number of years 
possible." .. 

In the early part of the evening, one of the stu- 
dents, Mr. Amasa McCoy, a young man of decided 
talent, read aloud some very appropriate passages 
from the " Bard of Avon " — one from " Henry IV.," 
another from the speech of Adam in " As You Like 
It," which seemed written almost expressly for the 
occasion and the venerable sire for whom it was 
selected : 

" Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty ; 
For in youth I never did apply 
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, 
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo 
The means of weakness and debility ; 
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
Frosty, but kindly." 

Just before the company dispersed, the venerable 
Doctor referred in a touching manner to the separa- 
tion that would soon take place between himself and 
the class before him, and besought them to live with 
constant reference to the Judgment-Day, " to prepare 
for which all others are given." 

" I charge you," he said, " let not one before me on 
that tremendous day be absent from the right hand 
of God, that, should it be my happiness to be found 
there also, I may be permitted to exclaim : * Here, 



194 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

Lord, am I and the children Thou hast committed to 
my care.' " And then, in behalf of all present, he 
offered up a most affecting and solemn prayer to the 
Father of all our mercies. His reference to the 
cholera, now literally " walking in darkness, and 
wasting at noonday," was very affecting; and in com- 
pliance with his fervent petition, one could almost see 
the Destroying Angel returning his raging sword to 
the scabbard and pronouncing it Enough! 



To 

Mr. Nicholas Dean, 

New York. 



CHAPTER XL 

THAT DESERTED ROOM 

Fairport, N. Y., July, 1849. 

My sweet thee and thou friend asks of me a letter, 
specifying : " and all about thyself." 

Far back then, in the beautiful by-gone, in a neat 
school-room a little way down the hill from my uncle's, 
I played school-mistress with a sea of faces around 
me as rosy and dimpled as was my own. One day 
a black-eyed, curly-headed little boy with a green 
satchel on his arm and a straw hat in his hand walked 
in and accosted me so handsomely that I was straight- 
way in love with him; and when I asked his name, 
he replied promptly: " Master William Lovejoy, 
ma'am. My father and mother are travelling this 
summer, and if you please they have sent me to at- 
tend your school." 

" Ah ! that is very right," I said, " and we are very 
happy to welcome you ; " and then by way of atten- 
tion I gave him a conspicuous seat, hung up his 
hat, opened his satchel and looked over his books, 
smoothed down his curls, and patted his rosy cheeks 
until the new-comer seemed to feel himself quite at 
home. Then I went on again hearing my little ones 
stammer through their tasks, but ever and anon my 
eyes wandered to Master William's seat, and as often 

195 



196 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

met his glancing over his shoulder, peeping quiz- 
zingly into the face of one or exchanging knowing 
looks with another; and when he saw me observing 
him, half laughed and looked on his book again. 

Master William was cousin to a little cousin of 
mine in the school, which by his mode of reasoning 
made him cousin to me, and was always very much 
hurt if in any way I failed to recognize the relation- 
ship. Toward the close of the summer and the school, 
Master William's parents returned and took him to 
their home, but not until they had exacted a promise 
from me evermore to consider their home my home, 
and for the sake of my little new cousin, to come to 
them as often as possible. A few years after, when 
my William had been but a brief time in his grave, 
a letter from this cousin was the first to chide the 
desolation of my great sorrow. 

" Oh ! come to us," he said. " We think of you 
and talk of you all the time. Come, do come soon; 
bring all your books and everything. Mother and I 
have the plans all made for the winter — what we 
shall do and where we shall go. Your pet table has 
been in my room this summer, and that old chair 
with the squeaking back, or l lone harp,' as you used 
to call it. But they are all replaced now, and it 
looks there again as though my dear cousin had but 
just stepped out." 

Up to this time I had strolled about the grounds 
like one whose soul had departed, sitting long hours 
under the trees with my weeping eyes staring into 
space or fixed vacantly upon the ground, not knowing 
and little caring what henceforth should become of 



THAT DESERTED ROOM 197 

me. But these friends had read the Doctor's obituary 
in the papers, knew of my marriage, and had ad- 
dressed me over my new name; so with them there 
would be nothing to explain, and I felt that I could 
go to them. Then with something in my heart like 
the dawn of courage I arose, and seeking the key to 
the room of the departed one, I went up and began 
that long-dreaded work of packing his books and 
papers which, with his watch and a few personal 
effects, constituted the little all that he had left me. 

Ah! that day, alone in that deserted room which, 
but one month before, my William had left so full of 
hope and health and happiness. As I look back to 
it now, the shades of evening were already gathering 
heavy upon the world when the last of those sacred 
things had been placed in the trunks below ; after 
which, still lingering as if to catch one more glimpse 
of the fast-fading past, I too crossed hurriedly that 
fated threshold and came down those winding stairs 
only to bide a little the hour deep marked for my en- 
trance upon those ages of darkness, that in the brief 
space of a second were flashed across the plane of my 
soul's vision two years before — deep marked lest the 
Angel of Destiny should this once forget or, pitying, 
pass a victim already sorrowing for the loved and 
the lost. Then when a few moons later, as a prelude 
to what has since transpired of that strange fore- 
shadowing, I went to the Institution for the Blind, all 
that I had to leave was sent here, which now on my 
return I have come to reclaim and make a little visit 
with these friends. Cousin William is eyes for me 
and leads me over the grounds and reads to me in the 



198 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

nooks and under the trees, where long ago I read to 
him until his speaking eyes saw poetry and beauty in 
everything. Yesterday I unlocked the box containing 
my school-day relics, and tore in pieces and consigned 
to the flames everything that had a line of my hand- 
writing upon it; and all the letters that I had ever 
received save three little sheets of long-ago light and 
love. My drawings Cousin William pleaded for, and 
I was almost sorry myself when they were gone, as 
my sisters would have prized them ; but when they are 
able to make better ones, I shall be glad that they 
have not mine for contrasts. 



To 

Mrs. Lewis Eddy, 

New York. 



CHAPTER XLI . 

THE EYES OR THE EARS 

Le Roy, N. Y., July, 1849. 
With those softly creeping, thought-pursuing fin- 
gers of yours, Mary, you have doubtless often traced 
or followed the Persian armies of Xerxes through all 
their weary march across deserts and plains to ancient 
Athens, and watched them in an evil hour wrap that 
great city in flames. But please imagine again with 
me those high walls being battered down, the white 
marble edifices and temples, dedicated to the gods, 
enveloped in smoke and marked for ruin; and then, 
along all those splendid streets, where so late art and 
science, life and beauty reigned, watch destruction, 
darkness, death, and decay slowly make their homes. 
I say imagine all that, for now, after nearly two thou- 
sand five hundred years have rolled away, and the 
meanest reptiles are crawling in the halls of kings, 
solitary toads hopping stealthily over the banquet 
floors, dark bats sleeping where birds of Jove plumed 
their glittering wings, moss and ivy growing and 
feeding upon the dust of princes, and the owl, sacred 
bird of the Athenians, making the night hideous with 
his dolorous cry above the ruins, I am going to take 
you there, Mary, for an ideal visit. But first let me 

199 



200 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

explain a little why I should be leading you, sweet 
one, away back, back through so many ages of dust 
and decay. 

Seven years ago, Miss Wright of this seminary 
went to Smyrna to teach the Protestant children of 
the Mediterranean, where she remained four years, 
and then came to Athens for a term of two years. 
During her absence, aided by friends who had pre- 
ceded her, she made a very choice collection of Greek, 
Roman, and Turkish antiquities, which are placed in 
the cabinet here on high shelves with glass doors. 
Yesterday being a holiday in the school, Miss Wright 
herself very kindly took them all down and put them 
one after another into my hands, and described them 
to me so minutely that I seem really to have seen 
them. One love-deed begets another, and so now with 
your permission, Mary, I am going to climb up there 
in fancy and do the same thing for you. 

First then, here is a little clay lamp which was dug 
from the ruins. You see it is shaped like the half of 
a goose-egg and about as large. It has a little tube 
on the top of one side for the wick, and some little 
holes in the middle where the oil was poured in, and 
they served also for a vent. It is a rude thing, but 
there is no knowing what great purposes it may have 
answered in the world. Possibly, by its light, Aris- 
tophanes wove his brilliant Comedies ; or it may have 
belonged to Plato and sat upon his little classic table 
while he wrote his Dialogues and Twelve Letters, the 
eloquence, melody, and sweetness of which, you know, 
so pleased the people that they entitled him " The 
Athenian Bee." 



THE EYES OR THE EARS 201 

Let us see ! Socrates' father was a sculptor, and in 
early life, it is said, the great philosopher himself fol- 
lowed the same majestic art. Well, here is one of the 
Athenian gods that may have been chiselled by his 
own hand ; and one of those, too, that he was after- 
ward accused of ridiculing, which to us would seem 
a very slight offence, but then nothing could atone 
for it but death. Innocence, alas! then as now, was 
no protection against the tongue of slander. The life 
of Socrates, we know, was adorned by every virtue 
and stained by no vice. For many years, too, his 
high-souled independence and freedom of speech 
upon all subjects placed him beyond the malevolence 
of anyone. But after the witty and unprincipled 
Aristophanes had once ventured to ridicule his ven- 
erable character in a comedy upon the stage, the way 
was opened, and praise soon gave place to criticism 
and censure. Envy hurled at him her poisoned 
arrows, and Jealousy, in the voices of Melitus, 
Anytus, and Lycon, stood forth to recriminate him; 
and good Socrates was summoned before the Tri- 
bunal of Five Hundred, you remember, accused of 
corrupting the Athenian youth, and ridiculing the 
many gods which the Athenians worshipped. 

Here now is a little earthen bowl which does not 
seem to differ much from the pottery of our day, 
though it has lain underground more than two thou- 
sand years. If not the same, it was probably one like 
it from which Socrates at last drank the poison, 
handed him by the executioner with tears in his eyes, 
when the great moralist lifted up his voice and ex- 
claimed : 



202 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

" There is but one God ! " and drew off the fatal 
draught. 

This, too, is a singular little thing, likewise a piece 
of pottery, shaped like a candlestick with a bilge in 
the middle and a hole in the top. The Greeks called 
it " Lachrymatory," which signifies : " A vessel for 
tears." What idea these people had of bottling tears, 
we know not ; but it reminds one of the beautiful pas- 
sage of David: 

" Thou tellest my wanderings, put Thou my tears 
into Thy bottle, are they not in Thy book? " These lit- 
tle tear-bottles, Miss Wright says, are found in nearly 
all the sarcophagi, or stone coffins, dug so frequently 
from the ruins of ancient Athens. They were placed 
there, doubtless, by the friends of the deceased, and 
probably contained the tears of the mourners, or those 
whose profession it was to weep for the dead — a very 
ancient Oriental custom, but quite as consistent as 
many of our funereal displays. While in Asia Minor, 
Miss Wright herself chanced to be present on one of 
these occasions ; and such control over the lachrymal 
glands, she says, she never before conceived possible. 
From perfect indifference, they were the next moment 
seemingly lost in the deepest grief, their cheeks bathed 
in what we would call " crocodile tears.'' 

Next, as I remember, we come upon one of the little 
sylvan gods of the ancient Greeks, also of pottery 
mould. It was probably a votive offering to Pan and 
Apollo, suspended perhaps in their caves, which are 
still to be seen in the side of the Athenian Acropolis, 
or highest point of the city. 

This, too, is another, only more ancient. Indeed, 



THE EYES OR THE EARS 203 

from its resemblance to the Egyptian mummies, it 
must have been in use as far back as the days of 
Cadmus. See its arms folded across it breast, robed 
like a little Miss Mummy, indeed, and covered with 
hieroglyphics. 

Now open your hands wide, Mary, and do not let 
it drop. This is the head of a great lion, taken from 
the eaves of the ancient Parthenon, the most beauti- 
ful temple ever dedicated to the goddess Minerva, 
and still the model of architects all over the world. 
Put your hand in his mouth here. You see it is wide 
open where the water spouted out. It was chiselled 
from a block of Pentelican marble, which in the 
quarry, they say, is pure white, and glistens in the 
sun like rock sugar. 

And now, imagine me placing in your hands a 
little marble book that came from Mars Hill, where, 
four hundred years after poor Socrates suffered his 
trial, received his condemnation, and drank the fatal 
hemlock, St. Paul stood and declared to the Athenians 
" The Unknown God," and defended himself before 
the Court Areopagus boldly answering in the pres- 
ence of the Athenian judges for his fearless denounce- 
ment of their wicked idolatries. A few years since, 
too, Dr. King, an American missionary to Greece, 
was tried there for a like offence; which makes him 
the third, you see, in a very illustrious line of 
" criminals " ! 

When Dr. King first went to Athens, Miss Wright 
says his house was built upon a pile of the old ruins, 
from which he dug this water- jar. It is an ancient 
thing, but even at the present time Greek maidens 



204 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

use them, only larger, for carrying water from the 
fountains. They are made with double handles, you 
see, and when filled, are carried one on each shoulder, 
which to us would seem impossible. Their supple 
joints, however, do not mind it; and if we, too, had 
some similar exercise, our forms would doubtless be 
more erect and our chests more expansive. 

This little stone is a bit of mosaic, taken from the 
floor of the old temple dedicated to Ceres at Eleusis, 
twelve miles from Athens. Anciently, this temple 
was visited by the Athenians annually in great proces- 
sions to pay their adoration to the goddess Ceres ; and 
the road to it, you remember, was called " The Sacred 
Way." 

Now, dear Mary, we will move along to a case full 
of Turkish things from Smyrna, Asia Minor. These 
large dolls represent the Turks and Armenians in 
their different costumes. But this droll thing is one 
of their chibouks, or long pipes, and the nargileh to 
it, which those seeing fingers of yours would soon dis- 
cover to be only a glass vase, beautifully painted. 
When used, though, it is filled with water, and the 
little fireplace in the top is where the tobacco is 
burned, from which the smoke comes down into the 
water, keeping it constantly bubbling, and then passes 
off through a long elastic tube, the end of which the 
smoker holds in his mouth, and may sit across the 
room if he like. This and coffee- sipping, you know, 
are among the Turk's greatest luxuries ; and now I 
remember, Miss Wright put into my hands next a 
little stack of their cups and saucers — not saucers 
exactly, but cunning little metal stands for the cups, 



THE EYES OR THE EARS 205 

called zarjs y she said, and made of gold and silver or 
whatever can be afforded. The cups hold about as 
much as an American would take at one swallow; a 
Turk, though, would be an hour sipping it and blow- 
into it the smoke of his pipe. While Miss Wright was 
in Smyrna, a traveller from our country called at the 
house of a pasha; and when helped to this mark of 
hospitality, instead of holding the tiny cup grace- 
fully between his thumb and finger and sipping it 
gently, he seized it with his whole hand and drank it 
off at once. The good pasha, of course, thought his 
guest greatly wanting in civility, and turning to an at- 
tendant, inquired: 

" Who is this barbarian! " 

But let us do what we are going to do quickly 
and be off, is not an unusual characteristic of the 
American. 

Dearest Mary, you will be weary if I take time to 
tell you of all the curiosities contained in this cabi- 
net, and their many associations, but as we move 
along I recall a collection of little Turkish amulets 
that are very curious. They are made of glass, like 
small bells, and are worn upon donkeys and cam- 
els to keep off the " Evil Eye," or the influence of 
jealousy and envy. The children wear them also for 
the same purpose. A little daughter of one of our 
missionaries, who of course wore no such badge of 
Oriental superstition, was visited by some of the 
natives, who, after lavishing upon the fair one their 
most extravagant praises of her beauty, at last spit 
in her face to prevent her being flattered, they said, 
which was doubtless a very effectual preventive! 



206 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

We read of the Pharisees, do we not, that " They 
do all their works to be seen of men, and make broad 
their phylacteries." Well, here is a phylactery, and 
a great many other things too, that I should like to 
tell you about, you dear one. I must leave you, 
though, to explore this large box of gold and silver 
embroidery with your spirit eyes, just as I must the 
pleasure of glancing along those cases of minerals 
yonder, extending across the entire room. Indeed, 
there seems no end here to subjects of pleasing and 
instructive thought. Like everything else, though, 
this cabinet had its beginning, or " day of small 
things." 

Many years ago, the Misses Ingham from Massa- 
chusetts established this school, and shortly after, a 
gentleman presented them a few specimens of stone 
from different quarries in this vicinity, around which 
all the rest have been slowly gathering from nearly 
every part of the world, until now this room is verily 
a little world by itself. And so the buildings, too, 
have been enlarged and the advantages of the school 
increased in every way until there are few institu- 
tions that afford greater facilities for the education 
of young ladies. The conservatories are choice, the 
libraries large and select, and the grounds around 
spacious and beautiful. Professor Stanton, who is 
at present the nominal head of the school, has re- 
cently returned from Europe, and his gallery and 
studio are hung around with paintings, many pieces 
by the old masters, but most of them are the works 
of his own hand. The Hon. Henry Clay and Major- 
General Taylor, now our President, both sat for him 



THE EYES OR THE EARS 207 

at New Orleans, and he points to their portraits 
with just pride. The principal teacher of painting, 
though, is a mute lady; and while kneeling at the 
easel, her soul becomes so enrapt with the inspira- 
tions of her art, that they say the forms on her can- 
vas seem to breathe and speak again to the glances 
of her eye. 

Still, dearest Mary, would you be willing to have 
your ears silenced for the sake of having your eyes 
opened? Ah! no; dark and empty and lonely as the 
world may be to us, I am persuaded that no intelli- 
gent blind person could be found who would exchange 
hearing, and its attendant gift of speech, for a pair of 
the brightest eyes in the world; while for myself, I 
have sometimes even wondered if, after all, it be, in 
the strictest sense of the word, a misfortune not to 
see. All of our other senses are certainly not only 
immeasurably quickened, but is not our whole nature 
improved and our immortal being greatly elevated 
through this darkest of human privations? Just 
imagine, for a moment, a touch like Cynthia Bul- 
lock's, so exquisite as to feel with ease the notes, lines, 
and spaces of ordinary printed music; then add to 
that a hearing that almost notes the budding of the 
flowers, and you will see how little one can possibly 
lack even in the scale of pleasurable existence, while 
perception in us becomes verily a new sense. Indeed, 
what shade of thought or feeling ever escapes us? 
Almost quicker than a thing has been uttered, we 
have felt or perceived it. What marvellous power, 
too, memory comes to possess, and how tenaciously 
she clings to everything, often astonishing even to 



208 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

ourselves; while imagination, that loftiest and most 
winged attribute of the soul, not only becomes more 
fleet, but literally turns creator, reproducing before 
our spirit eyes not only all that we have lost, clothed 
in the beautiful ideal, but unbars the gates to every 
new field of intellectual research, often enabling us to 
compete even more than successfully with those who 
see. 

Alas ! if there could be only a seat of learning for 
us, with all its lessons oral or in the form of lectures, 
as at most of the German universities, what could we 
not achieve! But as it is, enough renowned have 
arisen from our ranks to prove that, while blindness 
fetters the hands and the feet, it verily adds wings to 
thought. Indeed, the world has but one Homer who 
sits forever shrouded in darkness, the blind god and 
Father of Song ; and but one Milton who gave to the 
world its " Paradise Lost " and its " Paradise Re- 
gained," while he bequeathed to the blind of all ages 
the glory and the beacon-light of his name. 



To 

Miss Mary Brush, 

Blind Institute, New York. 



CHAPTER XLII 

A GIFT FROM THE ANGELS 

"Stone Cottage," July, 1849. 

The stars are bright on the brook by the door, as 
if they had alighted there awhile to bathe and watch 
their shadows in the sky whence they came. lovely 
night ! in whose peaceful hours the heart is ever wont 
to go abroad in search of those it holds most dear. 

My little sister Nin has been reading to me " Lays 
of Many Hours/' by Miss Maylin, of Salem, N. J., a 

relative, Mrs. B says, of the distinguished Dr. 

Bowring, of England, whence comes, doubtless, the 
quaint hymn-like style of her poems, and the solemn 
ease in the tread of her fancies. Yesterday we fin- 
ished " The Neighbors," and in the evening paper 
saw a notice that the gifted authoress is on her way 

to this country; and, doubtless, Mr. N will be 

among the first to go out to meet her. If travellers 
say rightly, Miss Fredrika is small and far from 
beautiful. But beside his well-known penchant for 

celebrities, Mr. N is a native Scandinavian ; and, 

excuse me, you will do well not to leave him too long 
listening to her brilliant conversations and gazing 
upon that charming little hand of hers, which a coun- 
tryman told me last summer constitutes her one per- 
sonal vanity. 

209 



210 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

I wish you could see the darling little sister who 
is writing for me this evening. Her voice is like the 
heart-note of life's song, her breath the fragrance of 
its one rose, and her lips its parted leaves. Sweet 
child! she was born on my birthday. Dear grand- 
mother placed her in my arms, calling her " a birth- 
day gift from the angels." " See," she said coax- 
ingly, " what tiny little feet and hands she has, and 
dear blue eyes, as though the light of heaven were 
lingering in them yet ! " "A birthday gift from the 
angels, surely," exclaimed dear father, " and worth a 
dozen of the one I promised her. Only think of it ! the 
seventh daughter, and a little prophetess at that — 
double veiled, I declare ! " Then dear mother, lying 
there smiling as only a loving mother can smile, and 
perhaps thinking over the heaps of rocking and 
toting her little bunch of pinks and violets in fairy 
cap and blanket was going to require, added: "And 
suppose we let her name her little birthday present 
if she will be good and faithful to tend her? " 

Name her ! Bless you, sweet mother, even now, for 
such a privilege to a girl heart, then already swelling 
as though Heaven had really sent it something beau- 
tiful to love. And what wonder that almost years 
passed before a name could be found dear and sweet 
and beautiful enough for a thing so lovely and so all- 
beloved? At length a list of names that had just 
been given to a little Chinese princess came in the 
papers, and one of them was Nin, which all were 
charmed with excepting dear father, who called it 
" the name of a heathen and no name at all." Still, 
the little fairy seemed to adopt it as a part of her 



A GIFT FROM THE ANGELS 211 

sweet self, and ran and hopped and played by it, 
laughed and sang by it, and came and went by it, 
until it seemed like robbing the lamb of half her 
smiles to take it away. So, finally linking it with 
gentle Eva, for an aunt in Ohio, dear father was 
persuaded to take down the old family Bible, and 
turning back reverently the record of his thee and 
thou fathers of six generations, wrote in it: 

" Nin Eva Aldrich," then the seventh in his string 
of graces, or troubles. Now, though, we are nine, 
with but one little brother. 

Dearest Sibyl, you will hardly believe me, but a 
thousand, thousand times more than I have ever 
envied you your black eyes, I have coveted your hap- 
piness of living for those whom you love. Indeed, by 
my William's grave, almost before the angels had 
borne him away, I looked down the long, lonely years, 
and found comfort in the thought of living henceforth 
but to break smiles around the hearts of the dear ones 
here, and plant new lights in this cottage home. But, 
alas ! too soon night, like a pillar of cloud, rose up 
before me dark and overwhelming until its very 
awfulness became as a living voice to my soul. I 
heard the voice and followed it ; and so far, surely, the 
dark, lonely way has been all dewy with mercies and 
shining with love. 

When the Lord leads, the roughest way is smooth, 
and when He helps, everything is easy. Hardly two 
months have passed, and yet almost subscribers 
enough to publish the little book have been gathered 
and paid in advance ; nearly enough letters for it, too, 
are already returned. Only the angels from heaven 



212 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

can know how my heart rejoices all the day long ; and 
sometimes it seems that I am just beginning to live 
now that I have the prospect again of something to 
live for. toil! how sweet; and employment, how 
beautiful ! Oh, anything but a life-long of listless de- 
pendence, a burden even to one's self and a blessing to 
no one! 

Dear Mr. Dean writes that the cholera continues to 
rage all about the institution, but has so far most 
miraculously forborne to enter it. Praying that all 
there may be still so guarded and blest, and hoping to 
have the happiness of hearing from you very soon, 
I am always, dear Sibyl, 

Lovingly yours, 



To 

Miss Sibyl G. Swetland, 

Preceptress, Blind Institute, New York. 



CHAPTER XLIII 

A LAKE OF SUNBEAMS 

"Stone Cottage/' August, 1849. 

Returning just now from a little walk up the hill 
road to the wood yonder, sweet May said to me tim- 
idly, while stirring her little hand in mine and edging 
closer to my side : 

" I wish you would let me write a long letter for 
you, like Nin. I can write almost as good as she can." 

" Bless you, sweet child ! " I said ; " you shall, 
indeed, write for me, and a long letter, too." So 
we hurried back, and the little queen is sitting up 
here now in the red sunlight, her heart running 
over with happiness simply because she is writing 
for me. 

Little Nin is one of those fairy sort of favorites to 
whom all indulgences and pleasant things seem to fall 
as a matter of course; while dear May, who is the 
younger, takes up just as naturally all the little self- 
denials, covers them over with her rosy smiles, and 
goes singing on all the same — like the brooklet by the 
door, running its sweetest music over the roughest 
places. 

innocent, unselfish childhood! how passing 
lovely; and what wonder that the Lord likened the 
angels in heaven to loving little ones like these ! And 

213 



214 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

whoever doubted, too, that it was mostly the little 
girls who were lifted in His arms and blessed? 

Leaving New York so hurriedly, dear Mr. Stevens, 
I doubtless lost the pleasure of evermore meeting you 
there. The links, though, in the chain of events that 
brought about my sudden departure were all too 
lovely, you will see, not to have been fashioned by 
quite other hands than mine own. 

My sweet escort, Bessie, came in the morning as 
usual, and we were down town quite early looking 
after subscribers for the little book that is to be. But 
it seemed that all the good angels had left the world 
that day, and it was high noon before hardly an ad- 
ditional name had been obtained. The sun was never 
so scorching, the pavements grew burning hot, and 
as you can imagine, we grew faint and very weary. 
Bessie begged to come home, but I coaxed the dear 
child along block after block, saying: 

" Never mind, darling, we will go soon ; we shall 
reap if we faint not. Doubtless the angels have gone 
on and are waiting for us a little way yonder in some 
good place that we shall come to presently." 

So, hour after hour we toiled on. Many were ab- 
sent, and some had one excuse and some another, until 
finally we came to the large importing house of Mr. 
Wilson G. Hunt, who was also out. But the clerk very 
kindly invited us to take a seat in the counting-room 
and wait, as he would be in shortly; and with the 
prospect of a little rest in a cool place, and a glass of 
ice water, we accepted his invitation. My heart 
prayed every breath, and I know Bessie's thoughts 
were at least faced toward Heaven. Presently, 



A LAKE OF SUNBEAMS 215 

though, Mr. Hunt entered, and his first words broke 
over my soul like a little lake of sunbeams. Taking a 
seat by his desk he said : 

" Well, ladies, have you called this hot day to make 
an investment with me! " 

" Oh, no, Mr. Hunt," I replied ; " excuse me, but I 
have called to give you an opportunity of making a 
little investment, if it is your pleasure/' 

"Ah ! well, that is right," he said ; " but what rate 
of interest do you propose? " 

" I do not know," I answered, " unless it be the 
thirty-fold Scripture promises," handing him the lit- 
tle prospectus, which he opened and read, looked over 
all the names, and then very kindly wrote his own for 
a copy; when suddenly, as if some good angel had 
flitted his thoughts with her white wing, he turned and 
said to me : 

" How many of these names have you gathered 
to-day?" 

" Mr. Fletcher Harper's was the first this morning," 
I answered, " and only four since, beside yours." 

"And how many do you usually get in a day? " 

" Sometimes as many as thirty," I replied, " and 
sometimes not half or a quarter that number ; just as 
the Lord seems to help." Then he called out to a clerk 
in the office adjoining: 

"John, how many are we here altogether?" 

" Twenty-five, I believe," was the answer, " beside 
those in California." 

" Well, what are their names ? " 

Then John went on repeating them, one after 
another, while Mr. Hunt wrote them all down, 



216 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

marking them all " $1.00 Paid " ; and when done, he 
said: 

" Now, John, bring me twenty-five dollars," which 
John did ; and Mr. Hunt placed all the bills, five new 
fives, in the little book of names, shut it up, and 
handed it to me, saying: 

" There now, my dear lady, one of your best day's 
work is done, and I guess you are not sorry." 

Oh! why is it that when we feel so much, we are 
always able to say so little! Rising, Bessie thanked 
him, I know, by turning her sweet self into a little 
statue of smiles; while my poor heart was so over- 
awed by his kindness, and the immediate and direct 
answer to my prayers, that to speak seemed impos- 
sible ; and when I felt a warm hand resting benignly 
upon my shoulder as if to bless and guide me away I 
knew that few words were needed, and with rainbows 
of gratitude melting through my tears I simply said : 

" I thank you forever, Mr. Hunt." 

" Not at all, not at all ! " was his kind reply, as 
he stepped along to escort us to the door ; " it doubt- 
less gives me far more pleasure than it does you." 
Then, turning to bid him adieu, I must have looked 
the gratitude that I could not speak, for again in the 
most encouraging manner possible, he said: 

" I shall be more than doubly paid when Christmas 
comes and you bring me the little books." So I de- 
parted, praying in my soul the white angels to encamp 
around about him forever, forever ! 

The next morning Bessie's mother sent me word 
that, in consequence of the increasing alarm of chol- 
era, she had decided to go into the country imme- 



A LAKE OF SUNBEAMS 217 

diately, and Bessie would not be able to join me any 
more for the present. That morning, too, eighteen 
additional names were added to the sick list in the 
institution. A large number also waited upon the 
superintendent and begged him to close the school, or 
at least permit them to depart. I passed much of the 
day as usual, among the trees, thinking, thinking; 
when about four o'clock a despatch came for me to be 
ready, as that evening a friend would call to take me 
up the Hudson to pass some time in Schenectady with 
my good friends, Doctor and Mrs. Nott, of which Miss 
Cynthia doubtless told you. I remained seven de- 
lightful days with them and then I felt that I was to 
leave. I packed up my things myself, and to the sur- 
prise of all, came down to breakfast in my travelling 
dress. Numberless objections were raised, but noth- 
ing could dissuade me. I said to them : 

" Have no fears ; the angels will be with me along 
all the way." 

They all came down to see me off. Dear Mrs. Nott 
gave the conductor a thousand charges, but when the 
grandson, Mr. Potter, was showing me into the car, 
who should rise up there to receive me but Mr. Dean's 
minister, Doctor Bellows, almost the best friend I have 
in New York. He was on his way West, and left me 
safe with the sister who, in answer to a despatch, was 
waiting to meet me at the train. Since that, as you 
will be happy to know, Rochester has added to my 
list of subscribers so many of her generous names, 
that after a very short time more in New York, I 
shall be able to give the little book to the publishers. 

Dear, beautiful Rochester! Sorrow has hallowed 



218 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

every inch of its grounds to me, and I love every 
stone in its walls. Indeed, my heart has set it np in 
its memory for a little city of refuge, a place to fly 
to through all time for love and light and smiles. 
Life's first joy was numbered to me there, and there 
the gates to the happy past closed upon me forever. 
Thenceforward I wander on, counting off sadly the 
dark days, as nuns tell their black beads, or like one 
sleep-walking in a happy dream, smiling out upon the 
dark. 

Dear Mr. Stevens, from our first meeting in Ge- 
neva, even until now, you have been scattering kind- 
nesses along my dark way ; and I have gathered them 
up until they make to my heart a little rose-garden of 
sunny memories; and would I could send you in re- 
turn, for all time, a never-failing lain of love, and a 
golden ephah of blessings ! 



To 

Mr. Stevens, 

Theological Seminary, Twenty-second St., 

New York. 



CHAPTER XLIV 

VICTORY 

"Stone Cottage," August, 1849. 

Few things are more natural than the desire to 
visit places foreign to one's own; besides, having in 
you, Cousin mine, the very soul of a poet, your imag- 
ination would fain be forever seeking new eyries 
wherein to build, and new heights wherefrom to soar. 
No one, more than I, would like you to see the Wind 
God shake old Ocean by his mane, feast your eye upon 
the Alps and Apennines, and watch their lakes when 
" red morn glows on their breasts." Still, a poet too 
much indulged is apt to lose his Muse. An only 
child, the pride of doting parents, a home lined with 
books, luxury at every turn, and tutors and masters 
always at hand, what possible ground for sympathy 
with my cousin save that he is too much favored 
instead of too little ! 

If we lift the curtain of the past and backward 
wander, however far, we find written upon every page 
of man's history: No excellence is obtained without 
labor. Young men of affluence, having little else to 
do than feast upon the bounties which Providence has 
assigned them and bask in the dawn of new enjoy- 
ments, are but seldom disposed to contend for meeds 
of honor obtained only at the expense of unwearied 

219 



220 A. PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

application and self-denial. They often enter the lit- 
erary course, though, and for a time may walk in ad- 
vance of those less favored than themselves ; until, by 
self-indulgence and irresolution, they become effemi- 
nate, fluctuate, and to their mortification yield the 
palm to their poor but persevering competitors, who, 
gradually advancing step by step, treading down 
every obstruction and boldly surmounting every bar- 
rier, nor tarrying in all the mountain-way, finally 
reach the goal and grasp the object of their anxious 
but deferred hopes. Indeed, so generally has poverty 
been the cradle of genius, that in every age and in 
every land those who have done most to defy time 
and decay, those to whom Science owes her greatest 
advancements, Art her grandest achievements, as well 
as those whose hands have oftenest guided safely the 
helm in the hour of a nation's peril, were in their 
youth not only deprived of the luxuries of life, but 
were often strangers to its most common comforts; 
and but for that unyielding and obstinate determina- 
tion which knows no such word as fail, they had with 
the multitude passed unknown away. 

Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer, said when 
dying : " If I owe the world anything, it is for its un- 
tiring opposition." The high-minded philosopher, 
Galileo, solicited the loan of a few shillings wherewith 
to construct an instrument with which he afterward 
shook the world's foundation of error. Rollin was 
running with the herd of other ragged lads when that 
ethereal spirit which beamed from out his eagle eye 
and expansive brow snatched him, a gem, from the 
mud, and set him up to shine forever in the unrivalled 



VICTORY 221 

splendors of his own genius. Columbus, whose soul 
when unfurled " leaped across the sea and laid bare 
a world," lived and died stung to his heart's core with 
want and neglect. Many of the richest minds Eng- 
land has produced were pearls brought up from the 
greatest obscurity: Shakespeare, to whom Nature 
gave her magic wand; Kirk White, the genius of 
musings; poor Chatterton, Sir Humphry Davy and 
his student, the young bookbinder, now no less than 
Sir Michael Faraday, Chemist Royal. 

The master spirits of all ages who have dazzled the 
world with their brilliant achievements had barriers 
of some kind to surmount. Napoleon, when he saw 
his ranks becoming thin, grasped the standard in his 
own hand, rushed forward, leaping over bodies of 
the slain like a spirit of the storm, till victory was 
his. And just so have arisen to excellence multitudes 
with whom the Fates loved to war. Indeed, there are 
moments in the lives of all when a word, a resolve, 
or a single step seems to be a pivot upon which their 
whole destiny turns, either for success or defeat — and 
that moment with you, Cousin mine, is now. 

During the last war with England, a British bat- 
tery stationed upon a hill considerably annoyed the 
American troops. 

" Can you storm that battery? " said General Rip- 
ley to Colonel Miller. 

" I will try, sir," was the laconic answer. 

Now, only rise and arm your most lofty aspirations 
with Colonel Miller's weapon, and the tame way you 
complain of will be straightway changed to an high- 
way, bordered with not only all the Alps and Apen- 



222 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

nines of travel that yon desire, bnt looming up in the 
distance the peaks of Parnassus even, np whose toil- 
some steeps have climbed one after another all that 
noble army, the story of whose lives and the veins of 
whose eloquence have flowed out over the ages but 
to fertilize the desolations of the human heart — that 
noble army who, employing their Heaven-lighted im- 
aginations for embodying Truth in living characters, 
set their names around with immortelles that will be 
new and sweet when the skies of worldly glory are 
darkened over and its scrolls gone to decay. 

You say, my dear Cousin : " I want to be some- 
thing in the world." Rather say : I want to do some- 
thing in the world, for toil he must who would have 
it said of him : He was great, or he was good. Good- 
ness is the chiefer part of greatness, and the most 
imperishable fame is the memory of him who made 
the world better by living in it, the memory of him 
who whitened his own immortal nature by loving and 
serving mankind, loving and serving God. 



To 

Mr. William W. Lovejoy, 

Fairport, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XLV 

ANOTHEK SCENE 

"Stone Cottage/' August, 1849. 

Out here on the steps where all is still save the 
noise of the brook gurgling by and the sound of the 
grinding in the mill below, I have come with my card 
and pencil to talk a night hour with you, dear Eliza 
Bush. It was in the old Seminary, long since to 
ashes gone, that I first planted you in my heart. 
Then it was a garden plat, fresh and green and full 
of hope-blossoms heavy with the perfumes of love. 
But now how changed ! Mildew and death are there ; 
frosts cold and frigid have turned their leaves, and 
sleety winds have shaken them to the ground. Still, 
like the dear Bush that you are, always ablaze in your 
own goodness, you stand now as then, firm and beau- 
tiful; like the oak you have spread your branches, 
and I in my weariness come to repose in their shade. 

Truly, Eliza, you have been to me not only a light 
in a dark place, but as the shadow of a great rock in 
a weary land. It was trusting to your sweet guid- 
ance that I first found courage to leave my room and 
come out into the world, the while through your eyes 
to look on myself as the world was evermore to look 
on me, with my heart robbed poor, my hands fettered, 
and my feet trailing after them the heavy chains of 

223 



224 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

darkness. Ah! how tenderly you watched over me 
during that visit, praising every move and assuring 
me over and over that no one would ever dream of 
my not seeing. Friends often say those things to 
me now, but their sound is as the ring of broken bells 
compared to the music they were to my ears then. At 
that last dinner, though — do you remember! — when 
coffee was served, and the tiny handle to my cup was 
turned just a little too much away, and I thought to 
substitute a spoon for my first sip, the handle of 
the spoon chanced to curve up instead of down, which 
brought the round of the bowl to my lips. I dropped 
it rather quickly with a nervous laugh. Others 
laughed from sympathy, and then I cried. The full 
weight of blindness came to my consciousness with 
such a blow that I could not help it. Afterward, 
though, our sweet hostess pronounced it " the best of 
the wine at the last of the feast," for, she said, " it 
baptized all our hearts with a tenderness of sympathy 
and love for you we can never forget." 

My next tears were when dear old Senator Backus 
came to announce all the arrangements perfected for 
my entrance into the New York Blind Institute, and 
for as many years as would make me an acceptable 
organist to any church. If changing heaven for outer 
darkness Satan felt any regret, he had at least the 
comfort of companionship, whereas I was to go alone, 
alone, alone. If the choice had been offered me of 
a narrow house alongside my William, " low in the 
ground," how long, think you, it would have taken 
me to decide 1 

The journey, though, to that Blind Institute was of 



ANOTHER SCENE 225 

itself another scene of that strange foreshadowing of 

my lot at L , the being borne or carried along 

through the darkness. The time you persuaded me 
to repeat it to you and Belle at your house, how little 
I dreamed that vague scene would ever constitute a 
part of my life; or what I called a pause become a 
lapse of years within those gloomy walls. Or the 
shape that you remember the darkness itself finally 
took on, mean the getting of subscribers for a little 
book of mine in the great city of New York. All that 
was foreshadowed, you see, had to be. Every step 
of the dread of what was seemingly out in the distance 
and yet rising up before me, I had to live through. 
Before it was finished the alarm of cholera came and 
hurried me away from the city. 

I say alarm — it was more than alarm — it was there. 
Finally a telegram from Mrs. Dr. Nott, of Schenec- 
tady, charged me to be ready at four o'clock, a friend 
would come and bring me to her. The angels had me 
still in their keeping, and after ten days with Mrs. 
Nott, brought me safe back to Rochester. And, ah! 
how I missed you there, my dear Eliza. Yes, how I 
missed everybody! 

Of all the epitaphs known among humans, the sad- 
dest is covered by that one little word: Forgotten! 
Christmas one year agone, Santa Claus was beauti- 
ful to me there, and one of the gayest and brightest- 
colored of his gifts was a dress pattern of chally ; and 
farther on toward spring, when my wardrobe was in 
process for oue more siege at the institution, Mrs. 
Snow suggested that said chally be exchanged for 
something similar in mourning that I could wear. 



226 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

The dressmaker knew exactly the place, named it, and 
straightway Mrs. Snow ordered her carriage, that 
freest thing in the world except her own heart and 
her home ; and when, at his store on the bridge, Mr. 
Aultman had kindly measured off the same number 
of yards and one or two more, lest his material were 
not quite so nice, folding it up he said to Mrs. S — - : 

" I think the advantage of this trade still mine. 
Is there not some little thing that your friend would 
like " — turning around to his shelves — " some pocket- 
handkerchiefs perhaps ? Here is a box of capes, frail 
but pretty enough while they last." 

Unfolding one, Mrs. Snow exclaimed : " How 
lovely ! as exquisite as the frostwork upon a window- 
pane ! " 

" Yes," he said, " but they are only illusion with 
the lace tracery gummed or pressed on, and while they 
look delicate enough to cost as many dollars, they are 
only seventy-five cents." One was added to the pack- 
age and we left. Entering the house I ran up to my 
room, tossed the things upon the bed, and hurried 
down to the lunch that was waiting. At the table the 
matter of the cape coming up, Miss Sarah, Mrs. 
Snow's niece, asked teasingly when I was going to 
wear it. 

" Oh ! there is no knowing," I replied, " unless I 
keep it to wear at your wedding " — which doubtless 
just enough piqued the curiosity of Elizabeth, the 
waiting-girl, to make her climb the slrirs or watch 
opportunity for a look at it before my departure. 
Anyway, the following May Mrs. Snow went to reside 
in Detroit, and Elizabeth went as second girl to the 



ANOTHER SCENE 227 

house of one of my other " best friends," and carried 
with her the story of the cape on this wise, as I had 
it from the same dressmaker, who, after my year's 
absence, came to give some needed touches to my 
wardrobe : 

Mrs. Blank to Elizabeth: "Mrs. De Kroyft had 
everything made up and her trunks filled very nicely, 
they say, before she left." 

" Oh, yes," quoth Elizabeth ; " and it was as good 
as the light of your eyes to see the lace cape that she 
bought for herself. Mrs. Snow's was fifty dollars, 
and it was nor half the size nor half the ilegance of 
hers." 

A lace cape! — and that very lady was one of the 
instigators, promoters, and contributors of the purse 
that the Eochester ladies made up for me when, alas ! 
the light so suddenly faded from my eyes. As you 
can imagine, the awful extravagance of such a lace 
cape was too much to rest there, and around and 
around it has passed. No wonder, then, poor Marion 
could get only one name upon the little prospectus 
that I sent her for that forthcoming book of mine — 
no wonder! — and that one not over-zealously ac- 
corded, she says. I doubted at first her having made 
any effort, but it was all made plain when the dress- 
maker inadvertently asked to see that " elegant lace 
cape " of mine that she had heard so much about. All 

made plain, too, why Mrs. B passed me on the 

street there without a recognition even — forgotten! 

At the first musicale given after my return to the 
institution, although taking no part in the exercises, 
wishing to look my best I wore that cape. Coming 



228 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

out of the chapel in the crowd, Mary Ann Plunkett, 
who always walks with her two long arms straight 
out in front of her like the two tusks to an elephant, 
gave me one rake down the back, and that piece of 
" vanity fair," the cape, was done, as I supposed. 
But not so. Just think of the friends it has cost me, 
and the subscribers that might have been for the little 
book — alas ! alas ! As it was, I let the ladies go as I 
did in New York, and waited only upon the gentle- 
men ; and, oh ! how lovely they were. So many sub- 
scribed that, after a little time more in New York, I 
shall be able to bring out the little book all paid and 
securely mine. 

Crossing the bridge one day I met Doctor Shaw, 
the first minister to come to see me after the loss of 
my eyes. After talking a moment, seeing the little 
roll of prospectus in my hand, he asked: 

" What are you doing, my child? " 

" You said to me once, Doctor," I replied, " that 
my misfortune was not for me alone, but for all the 
world; and I am just seeing that each one gets his 
part by becoming a subscriber to the little book I am 
going to publish." 

"The little book!" he exclaimed. "What is it 
going to be? " 

" A collection of my letters," I answered. 

" Is your Thanksgiving letter to Lizzie with that 
beautiful comment on the Bible to be one of them? " 
he inquired. 

" Oh, yes," I replied ; " and all the others I can 
get back ;" and I handed him the little prospectus. I 
do not know that there were tears in his eyes when 



ANOTHER SCENE 229 

he read it down; but his voice choked when he 
said: 

" I have put me down here for &ve copies. The 
Lord bless you ! " And, patting me on the shoulder, 
he was gone. 

Ah ! how I bless Heaven to-night for the wide, wide 
world that I see spreading out before me, even to the 
ceaseless goings foreshadowed in the vision. In this 
cottage are my sweet mother, one little brother, 
and eight sisters younger than myself — one a golden- 
headed tot of three years, able to accompany herself 
through sixteen little songs on an accordion the size 
of her two fists. Another, with school slate and pen- 
cil in hand, says anon to little brother : 

" Stand still, Bub, while I make you." 

So with music and art running through them all, 
beautiful and fashioned for the accomplishments 
father's long-ago losses make impossible — do you 
see! — using the little book now for replacing to them 
what they should have had, will be a blessed love- 
work to fill up the dark years with, and make them 
all beautiful as they fly. 

The terms I had in the Westfield Academy and 
my three years at Lima I have woven into a story that 
you may have the pleasure of reading some day. 
Strangely enough, what I once thought that girl- 
romance might achieve for the dear ones in this cot- 
tage, I go now to do with a book that I have not only 
lived, but moistened all its lines with tears from these 
veiled eyes of mine. 

Oh, praise His holy name ! who can turn the darkest 
night, even, into a purple dawn, and fill it with flowers 



230 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

and sweet odors from the far-away fields of His 
love! 

Stay ! the morning breaks ; the grinding at the mill 
has ceased. My father has come up and is preparing 
the wood wherewith to spread the morning meal. 
Then he will sleep — bless him ! At this season he can 
only have the water nights. Days it goes to the turn- 
ing of other mills, at the beck of the owner. 



To 

Miss Eliza Bush, 

Cincinnati, Ohio. 



CHAPTER XLVI 

VOICES FKOM AFAE 

Blind Institute, New York, September, 1849. 

One has said : " They are our best friends who de- 
mand from us our highest." Then, dear Mrs. Hardy, 
thou art assuredly the queen of mine, since, at the 
bare thought of thee, my soul rises up and would fain 
put on purple, while my heart is complaining ever that 
I have not golden wreaths of thought knotted with 
immortelles wherewith to set thy name around, and 
something dearer and sweeter than friend to call 
thee by. 

This is a dreamy half-summer and half-autumn day, 
and I fancy you going for the last time to sip from 
those joy-giving springs of old Virginia, making little 
pilgrimages to every crag and peak, and gazing long 
and lovingly on each mountain scene — something as 
the birds take leave of their summer homes, or as beau- 
tiful Eve turned reluctant from her hallowed haunts 
in Paradise. 

One year ago we strolled for the last time amid the 
breezes by the bay and climbed the dear old hills of 
Syosset; we knelt together in the little church there, 
lingered by the little lake, drank once more from the 
Cocoa Spring, and quitted sadly the murmuring 
shores of the sea. You told me much that was in your 

231 



232 A PLACE IN THY MEMORY 

heart that day, but what was shut up in mine, alas ! I 
had no words for. Indeed, I had not learned to whis- 
per it even to myself without blushing or shuddering 
with fear, and how name it, then, to a very queen, 
rustling along in her silks, and talking of her proud 
and beautiful home where she says to one : 

" Go, and he goeth ; and to another, Come, and 
he cometh." 

Yes ; how tell you then, sweet one, that I had fash- 
ioned in my heart the plan of a little book, wherewith 
to buy gloves and shoes and the much or the little that 
one needs! Success, though, makes one bold; and, 
now that it is so nearly done, I must explain to you 
that in the spring, when you were going to the moun- 
tains to attend tournaments and feasts, pace those 
gay halls and sip from sparkling cups, with a little 
prospectus in my hand, I came down the long steps of 
this institution out into the dark world to solicit sub- 
scribers for a little book that I, myself, aspired to 
publish. The angels were with me though, and one 
touch of their white wings melted the coldest heart to 
kindness. In the hurry and bustle of business and 
amidst problems half solved, gentlemen paused, read 
my brief prospectus, wrote their names, paid their 
money, and often escorted me to the door, and saw me 
safely down the stairs, perchance directing my gentle 
guide where to find others as kind as themselves. 

Now, dear Mrs. Hardy, I write you to please gather 
up all the missives I have troubled you with from time 
to time, and send them back to me. My little book is 
to be a collection of my letters ; it lacks yet a few, and 



VOICES FROM AFAR 233 

possibly you may have one or more in your keeping 
that you will allow me to give a place in it. You are 
surprised, I know, but, you dear one, I had to do 
something, and as ever so faint an effort savors some- 
what of virtue, better fail trying than never to have 
tried. The world, alas! is not so high that, like 
Heaven, it takes " the will for the deed " ; but never- 
theless "A book is a book," and mine will at least be 
something for me to smite the heart rocks of the world 
with along my wilderness way ! 

Oh ! you can never, never imagine the imprisonment 
these gloomy walls have become to my soul, or con- 
ceive how I long to get out into the wide, wide world. 
Besides, as a German philosopher says, " The way to 
study human nature is through the keyhole," and 
although I may never more read books, I may yet 
study mankind even better than those who see. En- 
veloped in these clouds, myself will be a sort of probe 
to each heart while I go on measuring souls, weigh- 
ing thought and feeling, or judging spirits by their 
voices, as some writer says the wise angels do. Oh ! 
yes, let me go, let me go ! Misfortune is its own pro- 
tection, and with God and the angels above, and a 
little friend to guide the way, I may learn the lessons 
that I may never more read, and, perhaps, live the 
book that I could never write. But, alas ! my volume 
must first pass the ordeal of editors, and wait their 
praise or criticism to pronounce it verily a book. 

Ah! the world! What terror is wrapped in that 
word, and how I have besought the Lord, night and 
day, to take the fear of it from my soul. But why so 



234 -4 PLACE IX THY MEMORY 

fear the world? Its pride is short-lived, and its pomp 
but a name. As the morning scoreheth up its beauties, 
so the world feeds upon its own glories and is gone. 
The world hath death in its memory, tombs in its 
heart, and is full of wailings. The world loveth not 
God: the world seeks no heaven, and has no altar 
where to weep. Ah ! then, why not rather pity than 
fear the world? Indeed, my gentle friend, necessity 
makes slaves or heroes of us all : and what though 
neglect or scorn rob one's cup a little of its sweetness, 
the draught. I ween, is not the less healthful. 

Dear, dear Mrs. Hardy, that long-promised month 
at your home is still in the distance, but like all shad- 
ows its reality must be somewhere : and if my book 
prove a sufficient success to warrant the course I have 
planned for myself. I shall ere long the more assur- 
edly come to you. 

It is hard to put some things into words musical 
enough for delicate ears, and I must leaA'e you. my 
friend, for the present at least, to your own sweet 
conjectures as to the plan that I have planned for 
myself. Life, though, is a broken thing to me. and 
what is there left but to gather up the pieces and band 
them together as best I may — not to set it up. though, 
with the best side in view, as if to fain cheat myself 
or the world that it is the same thing as new ! Xo. no ; 
but to bear it on. on. giving thanks that no vessel is so 
homely and no life so broken or so overcast, but it 
may still hold the blessings and the mercies of God; 
and so mine be made to run over ever so little with 
good to others, leam to ask no more. 



VOICES FROM AFAR 235 

Alas ! when one lias digged a grave so deep as to 
hold the sun, the moon, and the stars, all that is left 
one casts in easily. And here I begin existence anew ; 
no more past, no more pride, and no more anything 
but to henceforth hearken for the voices from afar and 
watch the white hands in the clouds that beckon the 
way. 



To 

Mrs. E. M. Hardy, 

"Riverside," Norfolk, Va. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Had I Known 1 

II. The Foukth Scene 5 

III. Who Shall Chide ? 11 

IV. A Little Sunny Isle 15 

V. As Erst I Was 20 

VI. Nothing to Die ! 25 

VII. Worth the Doing 31 

VIII. By the Blue Ontario 35 

IX. Proudest Stream 38 

X. Whatever Betide 44 

XI. One By One 50 

XII. So Quick, Alas ! 54 

XIII. Eadius of the Soul 59 

XIV. A Covert Way 65 

XV. Who Twice Bless 70 

XVI. Night-Days 73 

XVII. Young Ladies 77 

XVIII. All Our Feet to Climbing . . . .82 

XIX. Many Battles .87 

XX. Claims to Genius 93 

237 



238 


CONTENTS. 




CHAPTER 




PAGE 


XXI. 


In Lone Astonishment . 


. 98 


XXII. 


These Few Words . 


. 104 


XXIII. 


By What Straws 


. 107 


XXIV. 


To Every Thought . 


. 110 


XXV. 


Blessed Be Nothing 


. 113 


XXVI. 


Saved By Hope . 


. 116 


XXVII. 


The Warning .... 


. 119 


XXVIII. 


Reasoned Away 


. 128 


XXIX. 


Bubbling Sweet Waters to All . 


. 133 


XXX. 


At Least Akin 


. 136 


XXXI. 


Myself Did Look On Myself 


. 144 


XXXII. 


May Not Be 


. 148 


XXXIII. 


Proud and Happy . 


. 152 


XXXIV. 


Meantime 


. 157 


XXXV. 


If Thou Canst 


. 163 


XXXVI. 


The First Step Was Taken . 


. 167 


XXXVII. 


Airy Castles •. 


. 179 


XXXVIII. 


Ever So Little . 


. 186 


XXXIX. 


Yet Many More . 


. 190 


XL. 


That Deserted Room 


. 195 


XLI. 


The Eyes or the Ears . 


. 199 


XLII. 


A Gift from the Angels 


. 209 


XLIII. 


A Lake of Sunbeams 


. 213 


XLIV. 


Victory 


. 219 


XLV. 


Another Scene .• 


. 223 


XL VI. 


Voices from Afar . 


. 231 



1 ' The Foreshadowed Way ' ' and ' ' Mortara, ' ' named 
on the title-page, are sequels to this volume — "The 
Foreshadowed Way ' ' carrying along the story of the 
author's life through fifty years. 

Orders for the same, "A Place in Thy Memory," 
"The Story of Little Jakey," "The Soul of Eve," 
may be addressed to the author : Mrs. Helen A. 
De Kroyft, Aldrich Place, Dansville, N. Y. 



■ 3 



I 



